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                   A LECTURE ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY


                      MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
                      LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
                               MELBOURNE

                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                      NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO
                        ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO

                   THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
                                TORONTO




                               A LECTURE
                                  ON
                         THE STUDY OF HISTORY

                       _DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE,
                            JUNE 11, 1895_

                                  BY

                              LORD ACTON
                             LL.D., D.C.L.
                  REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY


                      MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
                      ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
                                 1911


                    RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
               BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S. E.,
                          AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK

                    _First Edition, October, 1895.
                    Second Edition, January, 1896.
                        Reprinted, 1905, 1911._




FELLOW STUDENTS,

I look back to-day to a time before the middle of the century, when I
was reading at Edinburgh, and fervently wishing to come to this
University. At three colleges I applied for admission, and, as things
then were, I was refused by all. Here, from the first, I vainly fixed
my hopes, and here, in a happier hour, after five-and-forty years,
they are at last fulfilled.

[Sidenote: UNITY OF MODERN HISTORY]

I desire first to speak to you of that which I may reasonably call the
Unity of Modern History, as an easy approach to questions necessary
to be met on the threshold by any one occupying this place, which my
predecessor has made so formidable to me by the reflected lustre of
his name.

You have often heard it said that Modern History is a subject to which
neither beginning nor end can be assigned. No beginning, because the
dense web of the fortunes of man is woven without a void; because, in
society as in nature, the structure is continuous, and we can trace
things back uninterruptedly, until we dimly descry the Declaration of
Independence in the forests of Germany. No end, because, on the same
principle, history made and history making are scientifically
inseparable and separately unmeaning.

[Sidenote: LINK BETWEEN HISTORY AND POLITICS]

“Politics,” said Sir John Seeley, “are vulgar when they are not
liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when
it loses sight of its relation to practical politics.” Everybody
perceives the sense in which this is true. For the science of politics
is the one science that is deposited by the stream of history, like
grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past,
the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical,
as an instrument of action, and a power that goes to the making of the
future.[1] In France, such is the weight attached to the study of our
own time, that there is an appointed course of contemporary history,
with appropriate textbooks.[2] That is a chair which, in the
progressive division of labour by which both science and government
prosper,[3] may some day be founded in this country. Meantime, we do
well to acknowledge the points at which the two epochs diverge. For
the contemporary differs from the modern in this, that many of its
facts cannot by us be definitely ascertained. The living do not give
up their secrets with the candour of the dead; one key is always
excepted, and a generation passes before we can ensure accuracy.
Common report and outward seeming are bad copies of the reality, as
the initiated know it. Even of a thing so memorable as the war of
1870, the true cause is still obscure; much that we believed has been
scattered to the winds in the last six months, and further revelations
by important witnesses are about to appear. The use of history turns
far more on certainty than on abundance of acquired information.

Beyond the question of certainty is the question of detachment. The
process by which principles are discovered and appropriated is other
than that by which, in practice, they are applied; and our most sacred
and disinterested convictions ought to take shape in the tranquil
regions of the air, above the tumult and the tempest of active
life.[4] For a man is justly despised who has one opinion in history
and another in politics, one for abroad and another at home, one for
opposition and another for office. History compels us to fasten on
abiding issues, and rescues us from the temporary and transient.
Politics and history are interwoven, but are not commensurate. Ours is
a domain that reaches farther than affairs of state, and is not
subject to the jurisdiction of governments. It is our function to keep
in view and to command the movement of ideas, which are not the
effect but the cause of public events;[5] and even to allow some
priority to ecclesiastical history over civil, since, by reason of the
graver issues concerned, and the vital consequences of error, it
opened the way in research, and was the first to be treated by close
reasoners and scholars of the higher rank.[6]

[Sidenote: NOT GOVERNED BY NATIONAL CAUSES]

In the same manner, there is wisdom and depth in the philosophy which
always considers the origin and the germ, and glories in history as
one consistent epic.[7] Yet every student ought to know that mastery
is acquired by resolved limitation. And confusion ensues from the
theory of Montesquieu and of his school, who, adapting the same term
to things unlike, insist that freedom is the primitive condition of
the race from which we are sprung.[8] If we are to account mind not
matter, ideas not force, the spiritual property that gives dignity,
and grace, and intellectual value to history, and its action on the
ascending life of man, then we shall not be prone to explain the
universal by the national, and civilisation by custom.[9] A speech of
Antigone, a single sentence of Socrates, a few lines that were
inscribed on an Indian rock before the Second Punic War, the footsteps
of a silent yet prophetic people who dwelt by the Dead Sea, and
perished in the fall of Jerusalem, come nearer to our lives than the
ancestral wisdom of barbarians who fed their swine on the Hercynian
acorns.

[Sidenote: MEDIÆVAL LIMIT OF MODERN HISTORY]

For our present purpose, then, I describe as modern history that which
begins four hundred years ago, which is marked off by an evident and
intelligible line from the time immediately preceding, and displays
in its course specific and distinctive characteristics of its own.[10]
The modern age did not proceed from the mediæval by normal succession,
with outward tokens of legitimate descent. Unheralded, it founded a
new order of things, under a law of innovation, sapping the ancient
reign of continuity. In those days Columbus subverted the notions of
the world, and reversed the conditions of production, wealth and
power; in those days, Machiavelli released government from the
restraint of law; Erasmus diverted the current of ancient learning
from profane into Christian channels; Luther broke the chain of
authority and tradition at the strongest link; and Copernicus erected
an invincible power that set for ever the mark of progress upon the
time that was to come. There is the same unbound originality and
disregard for inherited sanctions in the rare philosophers as in the
discovery of Divine Right, and the intruding Imperialism of Rome. The
like effects are visible everywhere, and one generation beheld them
all. It was an awakening of new life; the world revolved in a
different orbit, determined by influences unknown before. After many
ages persuaded of the headlong decline and impending dissolution of
society,[11] and governed by usage and the will of masters who were in
their graves, the sixteenth century went forth armed for untried
experience, and ready to watch with hopefulness a prospect of
incalculable change.

[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE ON MODERN HISTORY]

That forward movement divides it broadly from the older world; and the
unity of the new is manifest in the universal spirit of investigation
and discovery which did not cease to operate, and withstood the
recurring efforts of reaction, until, by the advent of the reign of
general ideas which we call the Revolution, it at length
prevailed.[12] This successive deliverance and gradual passage, for
good and evil, from subordination to independence is a phenomenon of
primary import to us, because historical science has been one of its
instruments.[13] If the Past has been an obstacle and a burden,
knowledge of the Past is the safest and the surest emancipation. And
the earnest search for it is one of the signs that distinguish the
four centuries of which I speak from those that went before. The
middle ages, which possessed good writers of contemporary narrative,
were careless and impatient of older fact. They became content to be
deceived, to live in a twilight of fiction, under clouds of false
witness, inventing according to convenience, and glad to welcome the
forger and the cheat.[14] As time went on, the atmosphere of
accredited mendacity thickened, until, in the Renaissance, the art of
exposing falsehood dawned upon keen Italian minds. It was then that
history as we understand it began to be understood, and the
illustrious dynasty of scholars arose to whom we still look both for
method and material. Unlike the dreaming prehistoric world, ours knows
the need and the duty to make itself master of the earlier times, and
to forfeit nothing of their wisdom or their warnings,[15] and has
devoted its best energy and treasure to the sovereign purpose of
detecting error and vindicating entrusted truth.[16]

[Sidenote: INTERNATIONAL IDEAS]

[Sidenote: MEMORABLE MEN]

[Sidenote: INDEPENDENT MINDS]

In this epoch of full-grown history men have not acquiesced in the
given conditions of their lives. Taking little for granted they have
sought to know the ground they stand on, and the road they travel, and
the reason why. Over them, therefore, the historian has obtained an
increasing ascendancy.[17] The law of stability was overcome by the
power of ideas, constantly varied and rapidly renewed;[18] ideas that
give life and motion, that take wing and traverse seas and frontiers,
making it futile to pursue the consecutive order of events in the
seclusion of a separate nationality.[19] They compel us to share the
existence of societies wider than our own, to be familiar with distant
and exotic types, to hold our march upon the loftier summits, along
the central range, to live in the company of heroes, and saints, and
men of genius, that no single country could produce. We cannot afford
wantonly to lose sight of great men and memorable lives, and are bound
to store up objects for admiration as far as may be;[20] for the
effect of implacable research is constantly to reduce their number. No
intellectual exercise, for instance, can be more invigorating than to
watch the working of the mind of Napoleon, the most entirely known as
well as the ablest of historic men. In another sphere, it is the
vision of a higher world to be intimate with the character of Fénelon,
the cherished model of politicians, ecclesiastics, and men of letters,
the witness against one century and precursor of another, the advocate
of the poor against oppression, of liberty in an age of arbitrary
power, of tolerance in an age of persecution, of the humane virtues
among men accustomed to sacrifice them to authority, the man of whom
one enemy says that his cleverness was enough to strike terror, and
another, that genius poured in torrents from his eyes. For the minds
that are greatest and best alone furnish the instructive examples. A
man of ordinary proportion or inferior metal knows not how to think
out the rounded circle of his thought, how to divest his will of its
surroundings and to rise above the pressure of time and race and
circumstance,[21] to choose the star that guides his course, to
correct, and test, and assay his convictions by the light within,[22]
and, with a resolute conscience and ideal courage, to re-model and
reconstitute the character which birth and education gave him.[23]

[Sidenote: FOREIGN CONSTITUTIONS]

For ourselves, if it were not the quest of the higher level and the
extended horizon, international history would be imposed by the
exclusive and insular reason that parliamentary reporting is younger
than parliaments. The foreigner has no mystic fabric in his
government, and no _arcanum imperii_. For him, the foundations have
been laid bare; every motive and function of the mechanism is
accounted for as distinctly as the works of a watch. But with our
indigenous constitution, not made with hands or written upon paper,
but claiming to develope by a law of organic growth; with our
disbelief in the virtue of definitions and general principles and our
reliance on relative truths, we can have nothing equivalent to the
vivid and prolonged debates in which other communities have displayed
the inmost secrets of political science to every man who can read.
And the discussions of constituent assemblies, at Philadelphia,
Versailles and Paris, at Cadiz and Brussels, at Geneva, Frankfort and
Berlin, above nearly all, those of the most enlightened States in the
American Union, when they have recast their institutions, are
paramount in the literature of politics, and proffer treasures which
at home we have never enjoyed.

[Sidenote: RESOURCES OF MODERN HISTORY]

[Sidenote: BEGINNING OF THE DOCUMENTARY AGE]

To historians the later part of their enormous subject is precious
because it is inexhaustible. It is the best to know because it is the
best known and the most explicit. Earlier scenes stand out from a
background of obscurity. We soon reach the sphere of hopeless
ignorance and unprofitable doubt. But hundreds and even thousands of
the moderns have borne testimony against themselves, and may be
studied in their private correspondence and sentenced on their own
confession. Their deeds are done in the daylight. Every country opens
its archives and invites us to penetrate the mysteries of State. When
Hallam wrote his chapter on James II., France was the only Power whose
reports were available. Rome followed, and the Hague; and then came
the stores of the Italian States, and at last the Prussian and the
Austrian papers, and partly those of Spain. Where Hallam and Lingard
were dependent on Barillon, their successors consult the diplomacy of
ten governments. The topics indeed are few on which the resources have
been so employed that we can be content with the work done for us, and
never wish it to be done over again. Part of the lives of Luther and
Frederic, a little of the Thirty Years' War, much of the American
Revolution and the French Restoration, the early years of Richelieu
and Mazarin, and a few volumes of Mr. Gardiner, show here and there
like Pacific islands in the ocean. I should not even venture to claim
for Ranke, the real originator of the heroic study of records, and the
most prompt and fortunate of European pathfinders, that there is one
of his seventy volumes that has not been overtaken and in part
surpassed. It is through his accelerating influence mainly that our
branch of study has become progressive, so that the best master is
quickly distanced by the better pupil.[24] The Vatican archives alone,
now made accessible to the world, filled 3,239 cases when they were
sent to France; and they are not the richest. We are still at the
beginning of the documentary age, which will tend to make history
independent of historians, to develope learning at the expense of
writing, and to accomplish a revolution in other sciences as well.[25]

[Sidenote: MODERN HISTORY]

To men in general I would justify the stress I am laying on modern
history, neither by urging its varied wealth, nor the rupture with
precedent, nor the perpetuity of change and increase of pace, nor the
growing predominance of opinion over belief, and of knowledge over
opinion, but by the argument that it is a narrative told of ourselves,
the record of a life which is our own, of efforts not yet abandoned to
repose, of problems that still entangle the feet and vex the hearts of
men. Every part of it is weighty with inestimable lessons that we
must learn by experience and at a great price, if we know not how to
profit by the example and teaching of those who have gone before us,
in a society largely resembling the one we live in.[26] Its study
fulfils its purpose even if it only makes us wiser, without producing
books, and gives us the gift of historical thinking, which is better
than historical learning.[27] It is a most powerful ingredient in the
formation of character and the training of talent, and our historical
judgments have as much to do with hopes of heaven as public or private
conduct. Convictions that have been strained through the instances and
the comparisons of modern times differ immeasurably in solidity and
force from those which every new fact perturbs, and which are often
little better than illusions or unsifted prejudice.[28]

[Sidenote: A SCHOOL OF OPINION]

[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT]

The first of human concerns is religion, and it is the salient feature
of the modern centuries. They are signalised as the scene of
Protestant developments. Starting from a time of extreme indifference,
ignorance, and decline, they were at once occupied with that conflict
which was to rage so long, and of which no man could imagine the
infinite consequences. Dogmatic conviction—for I shun to speak of
faith in connection with many characters of those days—dogmatic
conviction rose to be the centre of universal interest, and remained
down to Cromwell the supreme influence and motive of public policy. A
time came when the intensity of prolonged conflict, when even the
energy of antagonistic assurance, abated somewhat, and the
controversial spirit began to make room for the scientific; and as the
storm subsided, and the area of settled questions emerged, much of
the dispute was abandoned to the serene and soothing touch of
historians, invested as they are with the prerogative of redeeming the
cause of religion from many unjust reproaches, and from the graver
evil of reproaches that are just. Ranke used to say that Church
interests prevailed in politics until the Seven Years' War, and marked
a phase of society that ended when the hosts of Brandenburg went into
action at Leuthen, chanting their Lutheran hymns.[29] That bold
proposition would be disputed even if applied to the present age.
After Sir Robert Peel had broken up his party, the leaders who
followed him declared that no-popery was the only basis on which it
could be reconstructed.[30] On the other side may be urged that, in
July 1870, at the outbreak of the French war, the only government
that insisted on the abolition of the temporal power was Austria; and
since then we have witnessed the fall of Castelar, because he
attempted to reconcile Spain with Rome.

[Sidenote: RELIGION]

Soon after 1850 several of the most intelligent men in France, struck
by the arrested increase of their own population and by the telling
statistics from Further Britain, foretold the coming preponderance of
the English race. They did not foretell, what none could then foresee,
the still more sudden growth of Prussia, or that the three most
important countries of the globe would, by the end of the century, be
those that chiefly belonged to the conquests of the Reformation. So
that in Religion, as in so many things, the product of these
centuries has favoured the new elements; and the centre of gravity,
moving from the Mediterranean nations to the Oceanic, from the Latin
to the Teuton, has also passed from the Catholic to the
Protestant.[31]

[Sidenote: THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY]

[Sidenote: REVOLUTION]

Out of these controversies proceeded political as well as historical
science. It was in the Puritan phase, before the restoration of the
Stuarts, that theology, blending with politics, effected a fundamental
change. The essentially English reformation of the seventeenth century
was less a struggle between churches than between sects, often
subdivided by questions of discipline and self-regulation rather than
by dogma. The sectaries cherished no purpose or prospect of prevailing
over the nations; and they were concerned with the individual more
than with the congregation, with conventicles, not with
state-churches. Their view was narrowed, but their sight was
sharpened. It appeared to them that governments and institutions are
made to pass away, like things of earth, whilst souls are immortal;
that there is no more proportion between liberty and power than
between eternity and time; that, therefore, the sphere of enforced
command ought to be restricted within fixed limits, and that which had
been done by authority, and outward discipline, and organised
violence, should be attempted by division of power, and committed to
the intellect and the conscience of free men.[32] Thus was exchanged
the dominion of will over will for the dominion of reason over reason.
The true apostles of toleration are not those who sought protection
for their own beliefs, or who had none to protect; but men to whom,
irrespective of their cause, it was a political, a moral, and a
theological dogma, a question of conscience, involving both religion
and policy.[33] Such a man was Socinus; and others arose in the
smaller sects—the Independent founder of the colony of Rhode Island,
and the Quaker patriarch of Pennsylvania. Much of the energy and zeal
which had laboured for authority of doctrine was employed for liberty
of prophesying. The air was filled with the enthusiasm of a new cry;
but the cause was still the same. It became a boast that religion was
the mother of freedom, that freedom was the lawful off spring of
religion; and this transmutation, this subversion of established forms
of political life by the development of religious thought, brings us
to the heart of my subject, to the significant and central feature of
the historic cycle before us. Beginning with the strongest religious
movement and the most refined despotism ever known, it has led to the
superiority of politics over divinity in the life of nations, and
terminates in the equal claim of every man to be unhindered by man in
the fulfilment of duty to God[34]—a doctrine laden with storm and
havoc, which is the secret essence of the Rights of Man, and the
indestructible soul of Revolution.

[Sidenote: THE MODE OF LIBERTY]

[Sidenote: PROGRESS]

[Sidenote: THE MARK OF PROVIDENCE]

When we consider what the adverse forces were, their sustained
resistance, their frequent recovery, the critical moments when the
struggle seemed for ever desperate, in 1685, in 1772, in 1808, it is
no hyperbole to say that the progress of the world towards
self-government would have been arrested but for the strength afforded
by the religious motive in the seventeenth century. And this
constancy of progress, of progress in the direction of organised and
assured freedom, is the characteristic fact of modern history, and its
tribute to the theory, of Providence.[35] Many persons, I am well
assured, would detect that this is a very old story, and a trivial
commonplace, and would challenge proof that the world is making
progress in aught but intellect, that it is gaining in freedom, or
that increase in freedom is either a progress or a gain. Ranke, who
was my own master, rejected the view that I have stated;[36] Comte,
the master of better men, believed that we drag a lengthening chain
under the gathered weight of the dead hand;[37] and many of our recent
classics, Carlyle, Newman, Froude, were persuaded that there is no
progress justifying the ways of God to man, and that the mere
consolidation of liberty is like the motion of creatures whose advance
is in the direction of their tails. They deem that anxious precaution
against bad government is an obstruction to good, and degrades
morality and mind by placing the capable at the mercy of the
incapable, dethroning enlightened virtue for the benefit of the
average man. They hold that great and salutary things are done for
mankind by power concentrated, not by power balanced and cancelled and
dispersed, and that the whig theory, sprung from decomposing sects,
the theory that authority is legitimate only by virtue of its checks,
and that the sovereign is dependent on the subject, is rebellion
against the divine will manifested all down the stream of time.

[Sidenote: CERTAINTY]

[Sidenote: DEPENDENT ON RESERVE]

I state the objection not that we may plunge into the crucial
controversy of a science that is not identical with ours, but in order
to make my drift clear by the defining aid of express contradiction.
No political dogma is as serviceable to my purpose here as the
historian's maxim to do the best he can for the other side, and to
avoid pertinacity or emphasis on his own. Like the economic precept
_Laissez-faire_[38] which the eighteenth century derived from Colbert,
it has been an important, if not a final step in the making of method.
The strongest and most impressive personalities, it is true, like
Macaulay, Thiers, and the two greatest of living writers, Mommsen and
Treitschke, project their own broad shadow upon their pages. This is a
practice proper to great men, and a great man may be worth several
immaculate historians. Otherwise there is virtue in the saying that a
historian is seen at his best when he does not appear.[39] Better for
us is the example of the Bishop of Oxford, who never lets us know what
he thinks of anything but the matter before him; and of his
illustrious French rival, Fustel de Coulanges, who said to an excited
audience: “Do not imagine you are listening to me; it is history
itself that speaks.”[40] We can found no philosophy on the observation
of four hundred years, excluding three thousand. It would be an
imperfect and a fallacious induction. But I hope that even this narrow
and disedifying section of history will aid you to see that the action
of Christ who is risen on mankind whom he redeemed fails not, but
increases;[41] that the wisdom of divine rule appears not in the
perfection but in the improvement of the world;[42] and that achieved
liberty is the one ethical result that rests on the converging and
combined conditions of advancing civilisation.[43] Then you will
understand what a famous philosopher said, that History is the true
demonstration of Religion.[44]

[Sidenote: MEANING OF LIBERTY]

But what do people mean who proclaim that liberty is the palm, and the
prize, and the crown, seeing that it is an idea of which there are two
hundred definitions, and that this wealth of interpretation has caused
more bloodshed than anything, except theology? Is it Democracy as in
France, or Federalism as in America, or the national independence
which bounds the Italian view, or the reign of the fittest, which is
the ideal of Germans?[45] I know not whether it will ever fall within
my sphere of duty to trace the slow progress of that idea through the
chequered scenes of our history, and to describe how subtle
speculations touching the nature of conscience promoted a nobler and
more spiritual conception of the liberty that protects it,[46] until
the guardian of rights developed into the guardian of duties which are
the cause of rights,[47] and that which had been prized as the
material safeguard for treasures of earth became sacred as security
for things that are divine. All that we require is a workday key to
history, and our present need can be supplied without pausing to
satisfy philosophers. Without inquiring how far Sarasa or Butler, Kant
or Vinet, is right as to the infallible voice of God in man, we may
easily agree in this, that where absolutism reigned, by irresistible
arms, concentrated possessions, auxiliary churches, and inhuman laws,
it reigns no more; that commerce having risen against land, labour
against wealth, the state against the forces dominant in society,[48]
the division of power against the state, the thought of individuals
against the practice of ages, neither authorities, nor minorities, nor
majorities can command implicit obedience; and, where there has been
long and arduous experience, a rampart of tried conviction and
accumulated knowledge,[49] where there is a fair level of general
morality, education, courage, and self-restraint, there, if there
only, a society may be found that exhibits the condition of life
towards which, by elimination of failures, the world has been moving
through the allotted space.[50] You will know it by outward signs:
Representation, the extinction of slavery, the reign of opinion, and
the like; better still by less apparent evidences: the security of the
weaker groups[51] and the liberty of conscience, which, effectually
secured, secures the rest.

[Sidenote: THE GROWTH OF REVOLUTION]

[Sidenote: RENOVATION OF HISTORY BY REVOLUTION]

Here we reach a point at which my argument threatens to abut on a
contradiction. If the supreme conquests of society are won more often
by violence than by lenient arts, if the trend and drift of things is
towards convulsions and catastrophes,[52] if the world owes religious
liberty to the Dutch Revolution, constitutional government to the
English, federal republicanism to the American, political equality to
the French and its successors,[53] what is to become of us, docile and
attentive students of the absorbing Past? The triumph of the
Revolutionist annuls the historian.[54] By its authentic exponents,
Jefferson and Sieyès, the Revolution of the last century repudiates
history. Their followers renounced acquaintance with it, and were
ready to destroy its records and to abolish its inoffensive
professors. But the unexpected truth, stranger than fiction, is that
this was not the ruin but the renovation of history. Directly and
indirectly, by process of development and by process of reaction, an
impulse was given which made it infinitely more effectual as a factor
of civilisation than ever before, and a movement began in the world of
minds which was deeper and more serious than the revival of ancient
learning.[55] The dispensation under which we live and labour consists
first in the recoil from the negative spirit that rejected the law of
growth, and partly in the endeavour to classify and adjust the
revolution, and to account for it by the natural working of historic
causes. The Conservative line of writers, under the name of the
Romantic or Historical School, had its seat in Germany, looked upon
the Revolution as an alien episode, the error of an age, a disease to
be treated by the investigation of its origin, and strove to unite the
broken threads and to restore the normal conditions of organic
evolution. The Liberal School, whose home was France, explained and
justified the Revolution as a true development, and the ripened fruit
of all history.[56] These are the two main arguments of the generation
to which we owe the notion and the scientific methods that make
history so unlike what it was to the survivors of the last century.
Severally, the innovators were not superior to the men of old.
Muratori was as widely read, Tillemont as accurate, Leibniz as able,
Fréret as acute, Gibbon as masterly in the craft of composite
construction. Nevertheless, in the second quarter of this century, a
new era began for historians.

[Sidenote: USE OF UNPUBLISHED SOURCES]

[Sidenote: INSUFFICIENCY OF BOOKS]

I would point to three things in particular, out of many, which
constitute the amended order. Of the incessant deluge of new and
unsuspected matter I need say little. For some years, the secret
archives of the papacy were accessible at Paris; but the time was not
ripe, and almost the only man whom they availed was the archivist
himself.[57] Towards 1830 the documentary studies began on a large
scale, Austria leading the way. Michelet, who claims, towards 1836,
to have been the pioneer,[58] was preceded by such rivals as
Mackintosh, Bucholtz, and Mignet. A new and more productive period
began thirty years later, when the war of 1859 laid open the spoils of
Italy. Every country in succession has now allowed the exploration of
its records, and there is more fear of drowning than of drought. The
result has been that a lifetime spent in the largest collection of
printed books would not suffice to train a real master of modern
history. After he had turned from literature to sources, from Burnet
to Pocock, from Macaulay to Madame Campana, from Thiers to the
interminable correspondence of the Bonapartes, he would still feel
instant need of inquiry at Venice or Naples, in the Ossuna library or
at the Hermitage.[59]

[Sidenote: HISTORY RENEWED BY CRITICISM]

These matters do not now concern us. For our purpose, the main thing
to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art
of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood, and certainty
from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude
of erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens,
and extends the mind.[60] And the accession of the critic in the place
of the indefatigable compiler, of the artist in coloured narrative,
the skilled limner of character, the persuasive advocate of good, or
other, causes, amounts to a transfer of government, to a change of
dynasty, in the historic realm. For the critic is one who, when he
lights on an interesting statement, begins by suspecting it. He
remains in suspense until he has subjected his authority to three
operations. First, he asks whether he has read the passage as the
author wrote it. For the transcriber, and the editor, and the official
or officious censor on the top of the editor, have played strange
tricks, and have much to answer for. And if they are not to blame, it
may turn out that the author wrote his book twice over, that you can
discover the first jet, the progressive variations, things added, and
things struck out. Next is the question where the writer got his
information. If from a previous writer, it can be ascertained, and the
inquiry has to be repeated. If from unpublished papers, they must be
traced, and when the fountain head is reached, or the track
disappears, the question of veracity arises. The responsible writer's
character, his position, antecedents, and probable motives have to be
examined into; and this is what, in a different and adapted sense of
the word, may be called the higher criticism, in comparison with the
servile and often mechanical work of pursuing statements to their
root. For a historian has to be treated as a witness, and not believed
unless his sincerity is established.[61] The maxim that a man must be
presumed to be innocent until his guilt is proved, was not made for
him.

[Sidenote: CRITICAL STUDY OF EARLIER TIMES]

For us then the estimate of authorities, the weighing of testimony, is
more meritorious than the potential discovery of new matter.[62] And
modern history, which is the widest field of application, is not the
best to learn our business in; for it is too wide, and the harvest has
not been winnowed as in antiquity, and further on to the Crusades. It
is better to examine what has been done for questions that are
compact and circumscribed, such as the sources of Plutarch's
_Pericles_, the two tracts on Athenian government, the origin of the
epistle to Diognetus, the date of the life of St. Antony; and to learn
from Schwegler how this analytical work began. More satisfying because
more decisive has been the critical treatment of the mediæval writers,
parallel with the new editions, on which incredible labour has been
lavished, and of which we have no better examples than the prefaces of
Bishop Stubbs. An important event in this series was the attack on
Dino Compagni, which, for the sake of Dante, roused the best Italian
scholars to a not unequal contest. When we are told that England is
behind the Continent in critical faculty, we must admit that this is
true as to quantity, not as to quality of work. As they are no longer
living, I will say of two Cambridge professors, Lightfoot and Hort,
that they were critical scholars whom neither Frenchman nor German has
surpassed.

[Sidenote: DEGREES OF IMPARTIALITY]

The third distinctive note of the generation of writers who dug so
deep a trench between history as known to our grandfathers and as it
appears to us, is their dogma of impartiality. To an ordinary man the
word means no more than justice. He considers that he may proclaim the
merits of his own religion, of his prosperous and enlightened country,
of his political persuasion, whether democracy, or liberal monarchy,
or historic conservatism, without transgression or offence, so long as
he is fair to the relative, though inferior merits of others, and
never treats men as saints or as rogues for the side they take. There
is no impartiality, he would say, like that of a hanging judge. The
men who, with the compass of criticism in their hands, sailed the
uncharted sea of original research, proposed a different view.
History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not
on opinions. They had their own notion of truthfulness, based on the
exceeding difficulty of finding truth, and the still greater
difficulty of impressing it when found. They thought it possible to
write, with so much scruple, and simplicity, and insight, as to carry
along with them every man of good will, and, whatever his feelings, to
compel his assent. Ideas which, in religion and in politics, are
truths, in history are forces. They must be respected; they must not
be affirmed. By dint of a supreme reserve, by much self-control, by a
timely and discreet indifference, by secrecy in the matter of the
black cap, history might be lifted above contention, and made an
accepted tribunal, and the same for all.[63] If men were truly
sincere, and delivered judgment by no canons but those of evident
morality, then Julian would be described in the same terms by
Christian and pagan, Luther by Catholic and Protestant, Washington by
Whig and Tory, Napoleon by patriotic Frenchman and patriotic
German.[64]

[Sidenote: MORALITY THE SOLE RULE OF JUDGMENT]

I speak of this school with reverence, for the good it has done, by
the assertion of historic truth and of its legitimate authority over
the minds of men. It provides a discipline which every one of us does
well to undergo, and perhaps also well to relinquish. For it is not
the whole truth. Lanfrey's essay on Carnot, Chuquet's wars of the
Revolution, Ropes's military histories, Roget's Geneva in the time of
Calvin, will supply you with examples of a more robust impartiality
than I have described. Renan calls it the luxury of an opulent and
aristocratic society, doomed to vanish in an age of fierce and sordid
striving. In our universities it has a magnificent and appointed
refuge; and to serve its cause, which is sacred, because it is the
cause of truth and honour, we may import a profitable lesson from the
highly unscientific region of public life. There a man does not take
long to find out that he is opposed by some who are abler and better
than himself. And, in order to understand the cosmic force and the
true connection of ideas, it is a source of power, and an excellent
school of principle, not to rest until, by excluding the fallacies,
the prejudices, the exaggerations which perpetual contention and the
consequent precautions breed, we have made out for our opponents a
stronger and more impressive case than they present themselves.[65]
Excepting one to which we are coming before I release you, there is no
precept less faithfully observed by historians.

[Sidenote: EXAMPLE OF RANKE]

Ranke is the representative of the age which instituted the modern
study of history. He taught it to be critical, to be colourless, and
to be new. We meet him at every step, and he has done more for us than
any other man. There are stronger books than any one of his, and some
may have surpassed him in political, religious, philosophic insight,
in vividness of the creative imagination, in originality, elevation,
and depth of thought; but by the extent of important work well
executed, by his influence on able men, and by the amount of knowledge
which mankind receives and employs with the stamp of his mind upon it,
he stands without a rival. I saw him last in 1877, when he was feeble,
sunken, and almost blind, and scarcely able to read or write. He
uttered his farewell with kindly emotion, and I feared that the next I
should hear of him would be the news of his death. Two years later he
began a Universal History which is not without traces of weakness, but
which, composed after the age of eighty-three, and carried, in
seventeen volumes, far into the Middle Ages, brings to a close the
most astonishing career in literature.

[Sidenote: SUPPRESSION OF OPINION]

His course had been determined, in early life, by _Quentin Durward_.
The shock of the discovery that Scott's Lewis the Eleventh was
inconsistent with the original in Commynes made him resolve that his
object thenceforth should be above all things to follow, without
swerving, and in stern subordination and surrender, the lead of his
authorities. He decided effectually to repress the poet, the patriot,
the religious or political partisan, to sustain no cause, to banish
himself from his books, and to write nothing that would gratify his
own feelings or disclose his private convictions.[66] When a strenuous
divine who, like him, had written on the Reformation, hailed him as a
comrade, Ranke repelled his advances. “You,” he said, “are in the
first place a Christian: I am in the first place a historian. There is
a gulf between us.”[67] He was the first eminent writer who exhibited
what Michelet calls _le désintéressement des morts_. It was a moral
triumph for him when he could refrain from judging, show that much
might be said on both sides, and leave the rest to Providence.[68] He
would have felt sympathy with the two famous London physicians of our
day, of whom it is told that they could not make up their minds on a
case and reported dubiously. The head of the family insisted on a
positive opinion. They answered that they were unable to give one, but
he might easily find fifty doctors who could.

[Sidenote: CRITICISM OF MODERN SOURCES]

Niebuhr had pointed out that chroniclers who wrote before the
invention of printing generally copied one predecessor at a time, and
knew little about sifting or combining authorities. The suggestion
became luminous in Ranke's hands, and with his light and dexterous
touch he scrutinised and dissected the principal historians, from
Machiavelli to the _Mémoires d'un Homme d'État_, with a rigour never
before applied to moderns. But whilst Niebuhr dismissed the
traditional story, replacing it with a construction of his own, it was
Ranke's mission to preserve, not to undermine, and to set up masters
whom, in their proper sphere, he could obey. The many excellent
dissertations in which he displayed this art, though his successors in
the next generation matched his skill and did still more thorough
work, are the best introduction from which we can learn the technical
process by which within living memory the study of modern history has
been renewed. Ranke's contemporaries, weary of his neutrality and
suspense, and of the useful but subordinate work that was done by
beginners who borrowed his wand, thought that too much was made of
these obscure preliminaries which a man may accomplish for himself, in
the silence of his chamber, with less demand on the attention of the
public.[69] That may be reasonable in men who are practised in these
fundamental technicalities. We who have to learn them, must immerse
ourselves in the study of the great examples.

[Sidenote: METHOD TO BE LEARNT FROM SCIENCES]

Apart from what is technical, method is only the reduplication of
common sense, and is best acquired by observing its use by the ablest
men in every variety of intellectual employment.[70] Bentham
acknowledged that he learned less from his own profession than from
writers like Linnæus and Cullen; and Brougham advised the student of
Law to begin with Dante. Liebig described his _Organic Chemistry_ as
an application of ideas found in Mill's _Logic_, and a distinguished
physician, not to be named lest he should overhear me, read three
books to enlarge his medical mind; and they were Gibbon, Grote, and
Mill. He goes on to say, “An educated man cannot become so on one
study alone, but must be brought under the influence of natural,
civil, and moral modes of thought.”[71] I quote my colleague's golden
words in order to reciprocate them. If men of science owe anything to
us, we may learn much from them that is essential.[72] For they can
show how to test proof, how to secure fulness and soundness in
induction, how to restrain and to employ with safety hypothesis and
analogy. It is they who hold the secret of the mysterious property of
the mind by which error ministers to truth, and truth slowly but
irrevocably prevails.[73] Theirs is the logic of discovery,[74] the
demonstration of the advance of knowledge and the development of
ideas, which as the earthly wants and passions of men remain almost
unchanged, are the charter of progress, and the vital spark in
history. And they often give us invaluable counsel when they attend to
their own subjects and address their own people. Remember Darwin,
taking note only of those passages that raised difficulties in his
way; the French philosopher complaining that his work stood still,
because he found no more contradicting facts; Baer, who thinks error
treated thoroughly, nearly as remunerative as truth, by the discovery
of new objections; for, as Sir Robert Ball warns us, it is by
considering objections that we often learn.[75] Faraday declares that
“in knowledge, that man only is to be condemned and despised who is
not in a state of transition.” And John Hunter spoke for all of us,
when he said: “Never ask me what I have said or what I have written;
but if you will ask me what my present opinions are, I will tell you.”

[Sidenote: ALL ADOPT THE HISTORIC METHOD]

From the first years of the century we have been quickened and
enriched by contributors from every quarter. The jurists brought us
that law of continuous growth which has transformed history from a
chronicle of casual occurrences into the likeness of something
organic.[76] Towards 1820 divines began to recast their doctrines on
the lines of development, of which Newman said, long after, that
evolution had come to confirm it.[77] Even the Economists, who were
practical men, dissolved their science into liquid history, affirming
that it is not an auxiliary, but the actual subject-matter of their
inquiry.[78] Philosophers claim that, as early as 1804, they began to
bow the metaphysical neck beneath the historical yoke. They taught
that philosophy is only the amended sum of all philosophies, that
systems pass with the age whose impress they bear,[79] that the
problem is to focus the rays of wandering but extant truth, and that
history is the source of philosophy, if not quite a substitute for
it.[80] Comte begins a volume with the words that the preponderance of
history over philosophy was the characteristic of the time he lived
in.[81] Since Cuvier first recognised the conjunction between the
course of inductive discovery and the course of civilization,[82]
science had its share in saturating the age with historic ways of
thought, and subjecting all things to that influence for which the
depressing names historicism and historical-mindedness have been
devised.

[Sidenote: DANGER OF OBLIVION]

[Sidenote: PROPHECY OF PITT]

There are certain faults which are corrigible mental defects on which
I ought to say a few denouncing words, because they are common to us
all. First: the want of an energetic understanding of the sequence and
real significance of events, which would be fatal to a practical
politician, is ruin to a student of history who is the politician with
his face turned backwards.[83] It is playing at study, to see nothing
but the unmeaning and unsuggestive surface, as we generally do. Then
we have a curious proclivity to neglect, and by degrees to forget,
what has been certainly known. An instance or two will explain my
idea. The most popular English writer relates how it happened in his
presence that the title of Tory was conferred upon the Conservative
party. For it was an opprobrious name at the time, applied to men for
whom the Irish Government offered head-money; so that if I have made
too sure of progress, I may at least complacently point to this
instance of our mended manners. One day, Titus Oates lost his temper
with the men who refused to believe him, and after looking about for a
scorching imprecation, he began to call them Tories.[84] The name
remained; but its origin, attested by Defoe, dropped out of common
memory, as if one party were ashamed of their godfather, and the other
did not care to be identified with his cause and character. You all
know, I am sure, the story of the news of Trafalgar, and how, two
days after it had arrived, Mr. Pitt, drawn by an enthusiastic crowd,
went to dine in the city. When they drank the health of the minister
who had saved his country, he declined the praise. “England,” he said,
“has saved herself by her own energy; and I hope that after having
saved herself by her energy, she will save Europe by her example.” In
1814, when this hope had been realised, the last speech of the great
orator was remembered, and a medal was struck upon which the whole
sentence was engraved, in four words of compressed Latin: “_Seipsam
virtute, Europam exemplo._” Now it was just at the time of his last
appearance in public that Mr. Pitt heard of the overwhelming success
of the French in Germany, and of the Austrian surrender at Ulm. His
friends concluded that the contest on land was hopeless, and that it
was time to abandon the Continent to the conqueror, and to fall back
upon our new empire of the sea. Pitt did not agree with them. He said
that Napoleon would meet with a check whenever he encountered a
national resistance; and he declared that Spain was the place for it,
and that then England would intervene.[85] General Wellesley, fresh
from India, was present. Ten years later, when he had accomplished
that which Pitt had seen in the lucid prescience of his last days, he
related at Paris what I scarcely hesitate to call the most astounding
and profound prediction in all political history, where such things
have not been rare.

[Sidenote: RULES FOR THE STUDY OF HISTORY]

I shall never again enjoy the opportunity of speaking my thoughts to
such an audience as this, and on so privileged an occasion a lecturer
may well be tempted to bethink himself whether he knows of any
neglected truth, any cardinal proposition, that might serve as his
selected epigraph, as a last signal, perhaps even as a target. I am
not thinking of those shining precepts which are the registered
property of every school; that is to say—Learn as much by writing as
by reading; be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from
the others; have no favourites; keep men and things apart; guard
against the prestige of great names;[86] see that your judgments are
your own, and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without
testing; be more severe to ideas than to actions;[87] do not overlook
the strength of the bad cause or the weakness of the good;[88] never
be surprised by the crumbling of an idol or the disclosure of a
skeleton; judge talent at its best and character at its worst; suspect
power more than vice,[89] and study problems in preference to periods;
for instance: the derivation of Luther, the scientific influence of
Bacon, the predecessors of Adam Smith, the mediæval masters of
Rousseau, the consistency of Burke, the identity of the first Whig.
Most of this, I suppose, is undisputed, and calls for no enlargement.
But the weight of opinion is against me when I exhort you never to
debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but
to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to
suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history
has the power to inflict on wrong.[90] The plea in extenuation of
guilt and mitigation of punishment is perpetual. At every step we are
met by arguments which go to excuse, to palliate, to confound right
and wrong, and reduce the just man to the level of the reprobate. The
men who plot to baffle and resist us are, first of all, those who made
history what it has become. They set up the principle that only a
foolish Conservative judges the present time with the ideas of the
Past; that only a foolish Liberal judges the Past with the ideas of
the Present.[91]

[Sidenote: JUSTIFICATION OF THE PAST]

The mission of that school was to make distant times, and especially
the middle ages, then most distant of all, intelligible and acceptable
to a society issuing from the eighteenth century. There were
difficulties in the way; and among others this, that, in the first
fervour of the Crusades, the men who took the Cross, after receiving
communion, heartily devoted the day to the extermination of Jews. To
judge them by a fixed standard, to call them sacrilegious fanatics or
furious hypocrites, was to yield a gratuitous victory to Voltaire. It
became a rule of policy to praise the spirit when you could not defend
the deed. So that we have no common code; our moral notions are always
fluid; and you must consider the times, the class from which men
sprang, the surrounding influences, the masters in their schools, the
preachers in their pulpits, the movement they obscurely obeyed, and so
on, until responsibility is merged in numbers, and not a culprit is
left for execution.[92] A murderer was no criminal if he followed
local custom, if neighbours approved, if he was encouraged by
official advisers or prompted by just authority, if he acted for the
reason of state or the pure love of religion, or if he sheltered
himself behind the complicity of the Law. The depression of morality
was flagrant; but the motives were those which have enabled us to
contemplate with distressing complacency the secret of unhallowed
lives. The code that is greatly modified by time and place, will vary
according to the cause. The amnesty is an artifice that enables us to
make exceptions, to tamper with weights and measures, to deal unequal
justice to friends and enemies.

[Sidenote: PHILOSOPHIES OF HISTORY]

It is associated with that philosophy which Cato attributes to the
gods. For we have a theory which justifies Providence by the event,
and holds nothing so deserving as success, to which there can be no
victory in a bad cause, prescription and duration legitimate,[93] and
whatever exists is right and reasonable; and as God manifests His will
by that which He tolerates, we must conform to the divine decree by
living to shape the Future after the ratified image of the Past.[94]
Another theory, less confidently urged, regards History as our guide,
as much by showing errors to evade as examples to pursue. It is
suspicious of illusions in success, and, though there may be hope of
ultimate triumph for what is true, if not by its own attraction, by
the gradual exhaustion of error, it admits no corresponding promise
for what is ethically right. It deems the canonisation of the historic
Past more perilous than ignorance or denial, because it would
perpetuate the reign of sin and acknowledge the sovereignty of wrong,
and conceives it the part of real greatness to know how to stand and
fall alone, stemming, for a lifetime, the contemporary flood.[95]

[Sidenote: DEBASING THE CURRENCY]

Ranke relates, without adornment, that William III. ordered the
extirpation of a Catholic clan, and scouts the faltering excuse of his
defenders. But when he comes to the death and character of the
international deliverer, Glencoe is forgotten, the imputation of
murder drops, like a thing unworthy of notice.[96] Johannes Mueller, a
great Swiss celebrity, writes that the British Constitution occurred
to somebody, perhaps to Halifax. This artless statement might not be
approved by rigid lawyers as a faithful and felicitous indication of
the manner of that mysterious growth of ages, from occult beginnings,
that was never profaned by the invading wit of man;[97] but it is
less grotesque than it appears. Lord Halifax was the most original
writer of political tracts in the pamphleteering crowd between
Harrington and Bolingbroke; and in the Exclusion struggle he produced
a scheme of limitations which, in substance, if not in form,
foreshadowed the position of the monarchy in the later Hanoverian
reigns. Although Halifax did not believe in the Plot,[98] he insisted
that innocent victims should be sacrificed to content the multitude.
Sir William Temple writes:—“We only disagreed in one point, which was
the leaving some priests to the law upon the accusation of being
priests only, as the House of Commons had desired; which I thought
wholly unjust. Upon this point Lord Halifax and I had so sharp a
debate at Lord Sunderland's lodgings, that he told me, if I would not
concur in points which were so necessary for the people's
satisfaction, he would tell everybody I was a Papist. And upon his
affirming that the plot must be handled as if it were true, whether it
were so or no, in those points that were so generally believed.” In
spite of this accusing passage Macaulay, who prefers Halifax to all
the statesmen of his age, praises him for his mercy: “His dislike of
extremes, and a forgiving and compassionate temper which seems to have
been natural to him, preserved him from all participation in the worst
crimes of his time.”

[Sidenote: SINFULNESS OF HISTORY]

[Sidenote: SOVEREIGNTY OF THE MORAL CODE]

If, in our uncertainty, we must often err, it may be sometimes better
to risk excess in rigour than in indulgence, for then at least we do
no injury by loss of principle. As Bayle has said, it is more probable
that the secret motives of an indifferent action are bad than
good;[99] and this discouraging conclusion does not depend upon
theology, for James Mozley supports the sceptic from the other flank,
with all the artillery of Tractarian Oxford. “A Christian,” he says,
“is bound by his very creed to suspect evil, and cannot release
himself.... He sees it where others do not; his instinct is divinely
strengthened; his eye is supernaturally keen; he has a spiritual
insight, and senses exercised to discern.... He owns the doctrine of
original sin; that doctrine puts him necessarily on his guard against
appearances, sustains his apprehension under perplexity, and prepares
him for recognising anywhere what he knows to be everywhere.”[100]
There is a popular saying of Madame de Staël, that we forgive whatever
we really understand. The paradox has been judiciously pruned by her
descendant, the Duke de Broglie, in the words: “Beware of too much
explaining, lest we end by too much excusing.”[101] History, says
Froude, does teach that right and wrong are real distinctions.
Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral
law is written on the tablets of eternity.[102] And if there are
moments when we may resist the teaching of Froude, we have seldom the
chance of resisting when he is supported by Mr. Goldwin Smith: “A
sound historical morality will sanction strong measures in evil times;
selfish ambition, treachery, murder, perjury, it will never sanction
in the worst of times, for these are the things that make times
evil.—Justice has been justice, mercy has been mercy, honour has been
honour, good faith has been good faith, truthfulness has been
truthfulness from the beginning.” The doctrine that, as Sir Thomas
Browne says, morality is not ambulatory,[103] is expressed as follows
by Burke, who, when true to himself, is the most intelligent of our
instructors: “My principles enable me to form my judgment upon men and
actions in history, just as they do in common life; and are not formed
out of events and characters, either present or past. History is a
preceptor of prudence, not of principles. The principles of true
politics are those of morality enlarged; and I neither now do, nor
ever will admit of any other.”[104]

[Sidenote: HISTORY AND CHARACTER]

Whatever a man's notions of these later centuries are, such, in the
main, the man himself will be. Under the name of History, they cover
the articles of his philosophic, his religious, and his political
creed.[105] They give his measure; they denote his character: and, as
praise is the shipwreck of historians, his preferences betray him more
than his aversions. Modern history touches us so nearly, it is so deep
a question of life and death, that we are bound to find our own way
through it, and to owe our insight to ourselves. The historians of
former ages, unapproachable for us in knowledge and in talent, cannot
be our limit. We have the power to be more rigidly impersonal,
disinterested and just than they; and to learn from undisguised and
genuine records to look with remorse upon the past, and to the future
with assured hope of better things; bearing this in mind, that if we
lower our standard in history, we cannot uphold it in Church or
State.




                                 NOTES


[1] No political conclusions of any value for practice can be
arrived at by direct experience. All true political science is, in one
sense of the phrase, _a priori_, being deduced from the tendencies of
things, tendencies known either through our general experience of
human nature, or as the result of an analysis of the course of
history, considered as a progressive evolution.—MILL, _Inaugural
Address_, 51.

[2] Contemporary history is, in Dr. Arnold's opinion, more
important than either ancient or modern; and in fact superior to it by
all the superiority of the end to the means.—SEELEY, _Lectures and
Essays_, 306.

[3] The law of all progress is one and the same, the
evolution of the simple into the complex by successive
differentiations.—_Edinburgh Review_, clvii. 428. Die Entwickelung
der Völker vollzieht sich nach zwei Gesetzen. Das erste Gesetz ist das
der Differenzierung. Die primitiven Einrichtungen sind einfach und
einheitlich, die der Civilisation zusammengesetzt und geteilt, und die
Arbeitsteilung nimmt beständig zu.—SICKEL, _Goettingen Gelehrte
Anzeigen_, 1890, 563.

[4] Nous risquons toujours d'être influencés par les
préjugés de notre époque; mais nous sommes libres des préjugés
particuliers aux époques antérieures.—E. NAVILLE, _Christianisme de
Fénelon_, 9.

[5] La nature n'est qu'un écho de l'esprit. L'idée est la
mère du fait, elle façonne graduellement le monde à son
image.—FEUCHTERSLEBEN, _in_ CARO, _Nouvelles Études Morales_, 132. Il
n'est pas d'étude morale qui vaille l'histoire d'une idée.—LABOULAYE,
_Liberté Religieuse_, 25.

[6] Il y a des savants qui raillent le sentiment religieux.
Ils ne savent pas que c'est à ce sentiment, et par son moyen, que la
science historique doit d'avoir pu sortir de l'enfance.... Depuis des
siècles les âmes indépendantes discutaient les textes et les
traditions de l'église, quand les lettrés n'avaient pas encore eu
l'idée de porter un regard critique sur les textes de l'antiquité
mondaine.—_La France Protestante_, ii. 17.

[7] In our own history, above all, every step in advance has
been at the same time a step backwards. It has often been shown how
our latest constitution is, amidst all external differences,
essentially the same as our earliest, how every struggle for right and
freedom, from the thirteenth century onwards, has simply been a
struggle for recovering something old.—FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_,
iv. 253. Nothing but a thorough knowledge of the social system, based
upon a regular study of its growth, can give us the power we require
to affect it.—HARRISON, _Meaning of History_, 19. Eine Sache wird nur
völlig auf dem Wege verstanden, wie sie selbst entsteht.—In dem
genetischen Verfahren sind die Gründe der Sache, auch die Gründe des
Erkennens.—TRENDELENBURG, _Logische Untersuchungen_, ii. 395, 388.

[8] Une telle liberté ... n'a rien de commun avec le savant
système de garanties qui fait libres les peuples modernes.—BOUTMY,
_Annales des Sciences Politiques_, i. 157. Les trois grandes réformes
qui ont renouvelé l'Angleterre, la liberté religieuse, la réforme
parlementaire, et la liberté économique, ont été obtenues sous la
pression des organisations extra-constitutionnelles.—OSTROGORSKI,
_Revue Historique_, lii. 272.

[9] The question which is at the bottom of all constitutional
struggles, the question between the national will and the national
law.—GARDINER, _Documents_, xviii. Religion, considered simply as the
principle which balances the power of human opinion, which takes man
out of the grasp of custom and fashion, and teaches him to refer
himself to a higher tribunal, is an infinite aid to moral strength and
elevation.—CHANNING, _Works_, iv. 83. Je tiens que le passé ne suffit
jamais au présent. Personne n'est plus disposé que moi à profiter de
ses leçons; mais en même temps, je le demande, le présent ne
fournit-il pas toujours les indications qui lui sont propres?—MOLÉ,
_in_ FALLOUX, _Études et Souvenirs_, 130. Admirons la sagesse de nos
pères, et tachons de l'imiter, en faisant ce qui convient à notre
siècle.—GALIANI, _Dialogues_, 40.

[10] Ceterum in legendis Historiis malim te ductum animi,
quam anxias leges sequi. Nullae sunt, quae non magnas habeant
utilitates; et melius haerent, quae libenter legimus. In universum
tamen, non incipere ab antiquissimis, sed ab his, quae nostris
temporibus nostraeque notitiae propius cohaerent, ac paulatim deinde
in remotiora eniti, magis è re arbitror.—GROTIUS, _Epistolæ_, 18.

[11] The older idea of a law of degeneracy, of a “fatal drift
towards the worse,” is as obsolete as astrology or the belief in
witchcraft. The human race has become hopeful, sanguine.—SEELEY,
_Rede Lecture_, 1887. _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1887, 124.

[12] Formuler des idées générales, c'est changer le salpêtre
en poudre.—A. DE MUSSET, _Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle_, 15. Les
révolutions c'est l'avènement des idées libérales. C'est presque
toujours par les révolutions qu'elles prévalent et se fondent, et
quand les idées libérales en sont véritablement le principe et le but,
quand elles leur ont donné naissance, et quand elles les couronnent à
leur dernier jour, alors ces révolutions sont légitimes.—RÉMUSAT,
1839, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1875, vi. 335. Il y a même des
personnes de piété qui prouvent par raison qu'il faut renoncer à la
raison; que ce n'est point la lumière, mais la foi seule qui doit nous
conduire, et que l'obéissance aveugle est la principale vertu des
chrétiens. La paresse des inférieurs et leur esprit flatteur
s'accommode souvent de cette vertu prétendue, et l'orgueil de ceux qui
commandent en est toujours très content. De sorte qu'il se trouvera
peut-être des gens qui seront scandalisés que je fasse cet honneur à
la raison, de l'élever au-dessus de toutes les puissances, et qui
s'imagineront que je me révolte contre les autorités légitimes à cause
que je prends son parti et que je soutiens que c'est à elle à décider
et à regner.—MALEBRANCHE, _Morale_, i. 2, 13. That great statesman
(Mr. Pitt) distinctly avowed that the application of philosophy to
politics was at that time an innovation, and that it was an innovation
worthy to be adopted. He was ready to make the same avowal in the
present day which Mr. Pitt had made in 1792.—CANNING, June 1, 1827.
_Parliamentary Review_, 1828, 71. American history knows but one
avenue of success in American legislation, freedom from ancient
prejudice. The best lawgivers in our colonies first became as little
children.—BANCROFT, _History of the United States_, i. 494.—Every
American, from Jefferson and Gallatin down to the poorest squatter,
seemed to nourish an idea that he was doing what he could to overthrow
the tyranny which the past had fastened on the human mind.—ADAMS,
_History of the United States_, i. 175.

[13] The greatest changes of which we have had experience as
yet are due to our increasing knowledge of history and nature. They
have been produced by a few minds appearing in three or four favoured
nations, in comparatively a short period of time. May we be allowed to
imagine the minds of men everywhere working together during many ages
for the completion of our knowledge? May not the increase of knowledge
transfigure the world?—JOWETT, _Plato_, i. 414. Nothing, I believe,
is so likely to beget in us a spirit of enlightened liberality, of
Christian forbearance, of large-hearted moderation, as the careful study
of the history of doctrine and the history of interpretation.—PEROWNE,
_Psalms_, i. p. xxxi.

[14] Ce n'est guère avant la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle
qu'il devint impossible de soutenir l'authenticité des fausses
décrétales, des Constitutions apostoliques, des Récognitions
Clémentines, du faux Ignace, du pseudo-Dionys, et de l'immense fatras
d'œuvres anonymes ou pseudonymes qui grossissait souvent du tiers
ou de la moitié l'héritage littéraire des auteurs les plus
considérables.—DUCHESNE, _Témoins anténicéens de la Trinité_, 1883,
36.

[15] A man who does not know what has been thought by those
who have gone before him is sure to set an undue value upon his own
ideas.—M. PATTISON, _Memoirs_, 78.

[16] Travailler à discerner, dans cette discipline, le solide
d'avec le frivole, le vrai d'avec le vraisemblable, la science d'avec
l'opinion, ce qui forme le jugement d'avec ce qui ne fait que charger
la mémoire.—LAMY, _Connoissance de soi-même_, v. 459.

[17] All our hopes of the future depend on a sound
understanding of the past.—HARRISON, _The Meaning of History_, 6.

[18] The real history of mankind is that of the slow advance
of resolved deed following laboriously just thought; and all the
greatest men live in their purpose and effort more than it is possible
for them to live in reality.—The things that actually happened were
of small consequence—the thoughts that were developed are of infinite
consequence.—RUSKIN. Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from
the abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies latent among
them like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its value.—MACAULAY,
_Works_, v. 131.

[19] Die Gesetze der Geschichte sind eben die Gesetze der
ganzen Menschheit, gehen nicht in die Geschicke eines Volkes, einer
Generation oder gar eines Einzelnen auf. Individuen und Geschlechter,
Staaten und Nationen, können zerstäuben, die Menschheit bleibt.—A.
SCHMIDT, _Züricher Monatschrift_. i. 45.

[20] Le grand péril des âges démocratiques, soyez-en sûr,
c'est la destruction ou l'affaiblissement excessif des parties du
corps social en présence du tout. Tout ce qui relève de nos jours
l'idée de l'individu est sain.—TOCQUEVILLE, Jan. 3, 1840,
_Œuvres_, vii. 97. En France, il n'y a plus d'hommes. On a
systématiquement tué l'homme au profit du peuple, des masses, comme
disent nos législateurs écervelés. Puis un beau jour, on s'est aperçu
que ce peuple n'avait jamais existé qu'en projet, que ces masses
étaient un troupeau mi-partie de moutons et de tigres. C'est une
triste histoire. Nous avons à relever l'âme humaine contre l'aveugle
et brutale tyrannie des multitudes.—LANFREY, March 23, 1855. M. DU
CAMP, _Souvenirs Littéraires_, ii. 273. C'est le propre de la vertu
d'être invisible, même dans l'histoire, à tout autre œil que celui
de la conscience.—VACHEROT, _Comptes Rendus de l'Institut_, lxix.
319. Dans l'histoire où la bonté est la perle rare, qui a été bon
passe presque avant qui a été grand.—V. HUGO, _Les Misérables_, vii.
46. Grosser Maenner Leben und Tod der Wahrheit gemaess mit Liebe zu
schildern, ist zu allen Zeiten herzerhebend; am meisten aber dann,
wenn im Kreislauf der irdischen Dinge die Sterne wieder aehnlich
stehen wie damals als sie unter uns lebten.—LASAULX, _Sokrates_, 3.
Instead of saying that the history of mankind is the history of the
masses, it would be much more true to say that the history of mankind
is the history of its great men.—KINGSLEY, _Lectures_, 329.

[21] Le génie n'est que la plus complète émancipation de
toutes les influences de temps, de mœurs, et de pays.—NISARD,
_Souvenirs_, ii. 43.

[22] Meine kritische Richtung zieht mich in der Wissenschaft
durchaus zur Kritik meiner eigenen Gedanken hin, nicht zu der der
Gedanken Anderer.—ROTHE, _Ethik_, i., p. xi.

[23] When you are in young years the whole mind is, as it
were, fluid, and is capable of forming itself into any shape that the
owner of the mind pleases to order it to form itself into.—CARLYLE,
_On the Choice of Books_, 131. Nach allem erscheint es somit
unzweifelhaft als eine der psychologischen Voraussetzungen des
Strafrechts, ohne welche der Zurechnungsbegriff nicht haltbar wäre,
dass der Mensch für seinen Charakter verantwortlich ist und ihn muss
abändern können.—RÜMELIN, _Reden und Aufsätze_, ii., 60. An der
tiefen und verborgenen Quelle, woraus der Wille entspringt, an diesem
Punkt, nur hier steht die Freiheit, und führt das Steuer und lenkt den
Willen. Wer nicht bis zu dieser Tiefe in sich einkehren und seinen
natürlichen Charakter von hier aus bemeistern kann, der hat nicht den
Gebrauch seiner Freiheit, der ist nicht frei, sondern unterworfen dem
Triebwerk seiner Interessen, und dadurch in der Gewalt des Weltlaufs,
worin jede Begebenheit und jede Handlung eine nothwendige Folge ist
aller vorhergehenden.—FISCHER, _Problem der Freiheit_, 27.

[24] I must regard the main duty of a Professor to consist,
not simply in communicating information, but in doing this in such a
manner, and with such an accompaniment of subsidiary means, that the
information he conveys may be the occasion of awakening his pupils to
a vigorous and varied exertion of their faculties.—SIR W. HAMILTON,
_Lectures_, i. 14. No great man really does his work by imposing his
maxims on his disciples, he evokes their life. The pupil may become
much wiser than his instructor, he may not accept his conclusions, but
he will own, “You awakened me to be myself, for that I thank
you.”—MAURICE, _The Conscience_, 7, 8.

[25] Ich sehe die Zeit kommen, wo wir die neuere Geschichte
nicht mehr auf die Berichte selbst nicht der gleichzeitigen
Historiker, ausser in so weit ihnen neue originale Kenntniss
beiwohnte, geschweige denn auf die weiter abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen
zu gründen haben, sondern aus den Relationen der Augenzeugen und der
ächten und unmittelbarsten Urkunden aufbauen werden.—RANKE,
_Reformation_, _Preface_, 1838. Ce qu'on a trouvé et mis en œuvre
est considérable en soi: c'est peu de chose au prix de ce qui reste à
trouver et à mettre en œuvre.—AULARD, _Études sur la Révolution_,
21.

[26] N'attendez donc pas les leçons de l'expérience; elles
coûtent trop cher aux nations.—O. BARROT, _Mémoires_, ii. 435. Il y a
des leçons dans tous les temps, pour tous les temps; et celles qu'on
emprunte à des ennemis ne sont pas les moins précieuses.—LANFREY,
_Napoléon_, v. p. ii. Old facts may always be fresh, and may give out
a fresh meaning for each generation.—MAURICE, _Lectures_, 62. The
object is to lead the student to attend to them; to make him take
interest in history not as a mere narrative, but as a chain of causes
and effects still unwinding itself before our eyes, and full of
momentous consequences to himself and his descendants—an unremitting
conflict between good and evil powers, of which every act done by any
one of us, insignificant as we are, forms one of the incidents; a
conflict in which even the smallest of us cannot escape from taking
part, in which whoever does not help the right side is helping the
wrong.—MILL, _Inaugural Address_, 59.

[27] I hold that the degree in which Poets dwell in sympathy
with the Past, marks exactly the degree of their poetical
faculty.—WORDSWORTH in C. FOX, _Memoirs_, June, 1842. In all
political, all social, all human questions whatever, history is the
main resource of the inquirer.—HARRISON, _Meaning of History_, 15.
There are no truths which more readily gain the assent of mankind, or
are more firmly retained by them, than those of an historical nature,
depending upon the testimony of others.—PRIESTLEY, _Letters to French
Philosophers_, 9. Improvement consists in bringing our opinions into
nearer agreement with facts; and we shall not be likely to do this
while we look at facts only through glasses coloured by those very
opinions.—MILL, _Inaugural Address_, 25.

[28] He who has learnt to understand the true character and
tendency of many succeeding ages is not likely to go very far wrong in
estimating his own.—LECKY, _Value of History_, 21. C'est à l'histoire
qu'il faut se prendre, c'est le fait que nous devons interroger, quand
l'idée vacille et fuit à nos yeux.—MICHELET, _Disc. d'Ouverture_,
263. C'est la loi des faits telle qu'elle se manifeste dans leur
succession. C'est la règle de conduite donnée par la nature humaine et
indiquée par l'histoire. C'est la logique, mais cette logique qui ne
fait qu'un avec l'enchaînement des choses. C'est l'enseignement de
l'expérience.—SCHERER, _Mélanges_, 558. Wer seine Vergangenheit nicht
als seine Geschichte hat und weiss wird und ist characterlos Wem ein
Ereigniss sein Sonst plötzlich abreisst von seinem Jetzt wird leicht
wurzellos.—KLIEFOTH, _Rheinwalds Repertorium_, xliv. 20. La politique
est une des meilleures écoles pour l'esprit. Elle force à chercher la
raison de toutes choses, et ne permet pas cependant de la chercher
hors des faits.—RÉMUSAT, _Le Temps Passé_, i. 31. It is an unsafe
partition that divides opinions without principle from unprincipled
opinions.—COLERIDGE, _Lay Sermon_, 373.

    Wer nicht von drei tausend Jahren sich weiss Rechenschaft zu geben,
    Bleib' im Dunkeln unerfahren, mag von Tag zu Tage leben!

                                                          GOETHE.

What can be rationally required of the student of philosophy is not a
preliminary and absolute, but a gradual and progressive, abrogation of
prejudices.—SIR W. HAMILTON, _Lectures_, iv. 92.

[29] Die Schlacht bei Leuthen ist wohl die letzte, in welcher
diese religiösen Gegensätze entscheidend eingewirkt haben.—RANKE,
_Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_, vii. 70.

[30] The only real cry in the country is the proper and just
old No Popery cry.—_Major Beresford_, July, 1847. Unfortunately the
strongest bond of union amongst them is an apprehension of
Popery.—_Stanley_, September 12, 1847. The great Protectionist party
having degenerated into a No Popery, No Jew Party, I am still more
unfit now than I was in 1846 to lead it.—_G. Bentinck_, December 26,
1847. _Croker's Memoirs_, iii. 116, 132, 157.

[31] In the case of Protestantism, this constitutional
instability is now a simple matter of fact, which has become too plain
to be denied. The system is not fixed, but in motion; and the motion
is for the time in the direction of complete self-dissolution.—We
take it for a transitory scheme, whose breaking up is to make room in
due time for another and far more perfect state of the Church.—The
new order in which Protestantism is to become thus complete cannot be
reached without the co-operation and help of Romanism.—NEVIN,
_Mercersburg Review_, iv. 48.

[32] Diese Heiligen waren es, die aus dem unmittelbaren
Glaubensleben und den Grundgedanken der christlichen Freiheit zuerst
die Idee allgemeiner Menschenrechte abgeleitet und rein von
Selbstsucht vertheidigt haben.—WEINGARTEN, _Revolutionskirchen_, 447.
Wie selbst die Idee allgemeiner Menschenrechte, die in dem gemeinsamen
Character der Ebenbildlichkeit Gottes gegründet sind, erst durch das
Christenthum zum Bewusstsein gebracht werden, während jeder andere
Eifer für politische Freiheit als ein mehr oder weniger
selbstsüchtiger und beschränkter sich erwiesen hat.—NEANDER, _Pref.
to Uhden's Wilberforce_, p. v. The rights of individuals and the
justice due to them are as dear and precious as those of states;
indeed the latter are founded on the former, and the great end and
object of them must be to secure and support the rights of
individuals, or else vain is government.—CUSHING in CONWAY, _Life of
Paine_, i. 217. As it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not
yet understood; so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the
restitution of all things, and without miraculous interpositions, it
must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at—by the
continuance and progress of learning and liberty.—BUTLER, _Analogy_,
ii. 3.

[33] Comme les lois elles-mêmes sont faillibles, et qu'il
peut y avoir une autre justice que la justice écrite, les sociétés
modernes ont voulu garantir les droits de la conscience à la poursuite
d'une justice meilleure que celle qui existe; et là est le fondement
de ce qu'on appelle liberté de conscience, liberté d'écrire, liberté
de pensée.—JANET, _Philosophie Contemporaine_, 308. Si la force
matérielle a toujours fini par céder à l'opinion, combien plus ne
sera-t-elle pas contrainte de céder à la conscience? Car la
conscience, c'est l'opinion renforcée par le sentiment de
l'obligation.—VINET, _Liberté Religieuse_, 3.

[34] Après la volonté d'un homme, la raison d'état; après la
raison d'état, la religion; après la religion, la liberté. Voilà toute
la philosophie de l'histoire.—FLOTTES, _La Souveraineté du Peuple_,
1851, 192. La répartition plus égale des biens et des droits dans ce
monde est le plus grand objet que doivent se proposer ceux qui mènent
les affaires humaines. Je veux seulement que l'égalité en politique
consiste à être également libre.—TOCQUEVILLE, September 10, 1856.
_Mme. Swetchine_, i. 455. On peut concevoir une législation très
simple, lorsqu'on voudra en écarter tout ce qui est arbitraire, ne
consulter que les deux premières lois de la liberté et de la
propriété, et ne point admettre de lois positives qui ne tirent leur
raison de ces deux lois souveraines de la justice essentielle et
absolue.—LETROSNE, _Vues sur la Justice Criminelle_, 16. Summa enim
libertas est, ad optimum recta ratione cogi.—Nemo optat sibi hanc
libertatem, volendi quae velit, sed potius volendi optima.—LEIBNIZ,
_De Fato_. TRENDELENBURG, _Beiträge zur Philosophie_, ii. 190.

[35] All the world is, by the very law of its creation, in
eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils of the world may be
traced to that natural, but most deadly error of human indolence and
corruption, that our business is to preserve and not to
improve.—ARNOLD, _Life_, i. 259. In whatever state of knowledge we
may conceive man to be placed, his progress towards a yet higher state
need never fear a check, but must continue till the last existence of
society.—HERSCHEL, _Prel. Dis._, 360. It is in the development of
thought as in every other development; the present suffers from the
past, and the future struggles hard in escaping from the
present.—MAX MÜLLER, _Science of Thought_, 617. Most of the great
positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if
human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow
limits. Poverty in any sense implying suffering may be completely
extinguished by the wisdom of society combined with the good sense and
providence of individuals.—All the grand sources, in short, of human
suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely,
conquerable by human care and effort.—J. S. MILL, _Utilitarianism_,
21, 22. The ultimate standard of worth is personal worth, and the only
progress that is worth striving after, the only acquisition that is
truly good and enduring, is the growth of the soul.—BIXBY, _Crisis of
Morals_, 210. La science, et l'industrie qu'elle produit, ont, parmi
tous les autres enfants du génie de l'homme, ce privilège particulier,
que leur vol non-seulement ne peut pas s'interrompre, mais qu'il
s'accélère sans cesse.—CUVIER, _Discours sur la Marche des Sciences_,
24 Avril, 1816. Aucune idée parmi celles qui se réfèrent à l'ordre des
faits naturels, ne tient de plus près à la famille des idées
religieuses que l'idée du progrès, et n'est plus propre à devenir le
principe d'une sorte de foi religieuse pour ceux qui n'en ont pas
d'autres. Elle a, comme la foi religieuse, la vertu de relever les
âmes et les caractères.—COURNOT, _Marche des Idées_, ii. 425. Dans le
spectacle de l'humanité errante, souffrante et travaillant toujours à
mieux voir, à mieux penser, à mieux agir, à diminuer l'infirmité de
l'être humain, à apaiser l'inquiétude de son cœur, la science
découvre une direction et un progrès.—A. SOREL, _Discours de
Réception_, 14. Le jeune homme qui commence son éducation quinze ans
après son père, à une époque où celui-ci, engagé dans une profession
spéciale et active, ne peut que suivre les anciens principes, acquiert
une supériorité théorique dont on doit tenir compte dans la hiérarchie
sociale. Le plus souvent le père n'est-il pas pénétré de l'esprit de
routine, tandis que le fils représente et défend la science
progressive? En diminuant l'écart qui existait entre l'influence des
jeunes générations et celle de la vieillesse ou de l'âge mûr, les
peuples modernes n'auraient donc fait que reproduire dans leur ordre
social un changement de rapports qui s'était déjà accompli dans la
nature intime des choses.—BOUTMY, _Revue Nationale_, xxi. 393. Il y a
dans l'homme individuel des principes de progrès viager; il y a, en
toute société, des causes constantes qui transforment ce progrès
viager en progrès héréditaire. Une société quelconque tend à
progresser tant que les circonstances ne touchent pas aux causes de
progrès que nous avons reconnues, l'imitation des dévanciers par les
successeurs, des étrangers par les indigènes.—LACOMBE, _L'Histoire
comme Science_, 292. Veram creatæ mentis beatitudinem consistere in
non impedito progressu ad bona majora.—LEIBNIZ to WOLF, February 21,
1705. In cumulum etiam pulchritudinis perfectionisque universalis
operum divinorum progressus quidam perpetuus liberrimusque totius
universi est agnoscendus, ita ut ad majorem semper cultum
procedat.—LEIBNIZ ed. Erdmann, 150_a_. Der Creaturen und also auch
unsere Vollkommenheit bestehet in einem ungehinderten starken
Forttrieb zu neuen und neuen Vollkommenheiten.—LEIBNIZ, _Deutsche
Schriften_, ii. 36. Hegel, welcher annahm, der Fortschritt der Neuzeit
gegen das Mittelalter sei dieser, dass die Principien der Tugend und
des Christenthums, welche im Mittelalter sich allein im Privatleben
und der Kirche zur Geltung gebracht hätten, nun auch anfingen, das
politische Leben zu durchdringen.—FORTLAGE, _Allg. Monatschrift_,
1853, 777. Wir Slawen wissen, dass die Geister einzelner Menschen und
ganzer Völker sich nur durch die Stufe ihrer Entwicklung
unterscheiden.—MICKIEWICZ, _Slawische Literatur_, ii. 436. Le progrès
ne disparait jamais, mais il se déplace souvent. Il va des gouvernants
aux gouvernés. La tendance des révolutions est de le ramener toujours
parmi les gouvernants. Lorsqu'il est à la tête des sociétés, il marche
hardiment, car il conduit. Lorsqu'il est dans la masse, il marche à
pas lents, car il lutte.—NAPOLEON III., _Des Idées Napoléoniennes_.
La loi du progrès avait jadis l'inexorable rigueur du destin; elle
prend maintenant de jour en jour la douce puissance de la Providence.
C'est l'erreur, c'est l'iniquité, c'est le vice, que la civilisation
tend à emporter dans sa marche irrésistible; mais la vie des individus
et des peuples est devenue pour elle une chose sacrée. Elle transforme
plutôt qu'elle ne détruit les choses qui s'opposent à son
développement; elle procède par absorption graduelle plutôt que par
brusque exécution; elle aime à conquérir par l'influence des idées
plutôt que par la force des armes, un peuple, une classe, une
institution qui résiste au progrès.—VACHEROT, _Essais de Philosophie
Critique_, 443. Peu à peu l'homme intellectuel finit par effacer
l'homme physique.—QUETELET, _De l'Homme_, ii. 285. In dem Fortschritt
der ethischen Anschauungen liegt daher der Kern des geschichtlichen
Fortschritts überhaupt.—SCHÄFER, _Arbeitsgebiet der Geschichte_, 24.
Si l'homme a plus de devoirs à mesure qu'il avance en âge, ce qui est
mélancolique, mais ce qui est vrai, de même aussi l'humanité est tenue
d'avoir une morale plus sévère à mesure qu'elle prend plus de
siècles.—FAGUET, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1894, iii. 871. Si donc il
y a une loi de progrès, elle se confond avec la loi morale, et la
condition fondamentale du progrès, c'est la pratique de cette
loi.—CARRAU, _Ib._, 1875, v. 585. L'idée du progrès, du
développement, me paraît être l'idée fondamentale contenue sous le mot
de civilisation.—GUIZOT, _Cours d'Histoire_, 1828, 15. Le progrès
n'est sous un autre nom, que la liberté en action.—BROGLIE, _Journal
des Débats_, January 28, 1869. Le progrès social est continu. Il a ses
périodes de fièvre ou d'atonie, de surexcitation ou de léthargie; il a
ses soubresauts et ses haltes, mais il avance toujours.—DE DECKER,
_La Providence_, 174. Ce n'est pas au bonheur seul, c'est au
perfectionnement que notre destin nous appelle; et la liberté
politique est le plus puissant, le plus énergique moyen de
perfectionnement que le ciel nous ait donné.—B. CONSTANT, _Cours de
Politique_, ii. 559. To explode error, on whichever side it lies, is
certainly to secure progress.—MARTINEAU, _Essays_, i. 114. Die
sämmtlichen Freiheitsrechte, welche der heutigen Menschheit so theuer sind,
sind im Grunde nur Anwendungen des Rechts der Entwickelung.—BLUNTSCHLI,
_Kleine Schriften_, i. 51. Geistiges Leben ist auf Freiheit beruhende
Entwicklung, mit Freiheit vollzogene That und geschichtlicher
Fortschritt.—_Münchner Gel. Anzeigen_ 1849, ii. 83. Wie das Denken
erst nach und nach reift, so wird auch der freie Wille nicht fertig
geboren, sondern in der Entwickelung erworben.—TRENDELENBURG,
_Logische Untersuchungen_, ii. 94. Das Liberum Arbitrium im vollen
Sinne (die vollständig aktuelle Macht der Selbstbestimmung) lässt sich
seinem Begriff zufolge schlechterdings nicht unmittelbar geben; es
kann nur erworben werden durch das Subjekt selbst, in sich moralisch
hervorgebracht werden kraft seiner eigenen Entwickelung.—ROTHE,
_Ethik_, i. 360. So gewaltig sei der Andrang der Erfindungen und
Entdeckungen, dass “Entwicklungsperioden, die in früheren Zeiten erst
in Jahrhunderten durchlaufen wurden, die im Beginn unserer Zeitperiode
noch der Jahrzehnte bedurften, sich heute in Jahren volienden, häufig
schon in voller Ausbildung ins Dasein treten.”—PHILIPPOVICH,
_Fortschritt und Kulturentwicklung_, 1892, i. quoting SIEMENS, 1886.
Wir erkennen dass dem Menschen die schwere körperliche Arbeit, von der
er in seinem Kampfe um's Dasein stets schwer niedergedrückt war und
grossenteils noch ist, mehr und mehr durch die wachsende Benutzung der
Naturkräfte zur mechanischen Arbeitsleistung abgenommen wird, dass
die ihm zufallende Arbeit immer mehr eine intellektuelle
wird.—SIEMENS, 1886, _Ib._ 6.

[36] Once, however, he wrote:—Darin könnte man den idealen
Kern der Geschichte des menschlichen Geschlechtes überhaupt sehen,
dass in den Kämpfen, die sich in den gegenseitigen Interessen der
Staaten und Völker vollziehen, doch immer höhere Potenzen emporkommen,
die das Allgemeine demgemäss umgestalten und ihm wieder einen anderen
Charakter verleihen.—RANKE, _Weltgeschichte_, iii. 1, 6.

[37] Toujours et partout, les hommes furent de plus en plus
dominés par l'ensemble de leurs prédécesseurs, dont ils purent
seulement modifier l'empire nécessaire.—COMTE, _Politique Positive_,
iii. 621.

[38] La liberté est l'âme du commerce.—Il faut laisser faire
les hommes qui s'appliquent sans peine à ce qui convient le mieux;
c'est ce qui apporte le plus d'avantage.—COLBERT, in _Comptes Rendus
de l'Institut_, xxxix. 93.

[39] Il n'y a que les choses humaines exposées dans leur
vérité, c'est-à-dire avec leur grandeur, leur variété, leur
inépuisable fécondité, qui aient le droit de retenir le lecteur et qui
le retiennent en effet. Si l'écrivain paraît une fois, il ennuie ou
fait sourire de pitié les lecteurs sérieux.—THIERS to STE. BEUVE,
_Lundis_, iii. 195. Comme l'a dit Taine, la disparition du style,
c'est la perfection du style.—FAGUET, _Revue Politique_, lii. 67.

[40] Ne m'applaudissez pas; ce n'est pas moi qui vous parle;
c'est l'histoire qui parle par ma bouche.—_Revue Historique_, xli.
278.

[41] Das Evangelium trat als Geschichte in die Welt, nicht
als Dogma—wurde als Geschichte in der christlichen Kirche
deponirt.—ROTHE, _Kirchengeschichte_, ii. p. x. Das Christenthum ist
nicht der Herr Christus, sondern dieser macht es. Es ist sein Werk,
und zwar ein Werk das er stets unter der Arbeit hat.—Er selbst,
Christus der Herr, bleibt der er ist in alle Zukunft, dagegen liegt es
ausdrücklich im Begriffe seines Werks, des Christenthums, dass es
nicht so bleibt wie es anhebt.—ROTHE, _Allgemeine kirchliche
Zeitschrift_, 1864, 299. Diess Werk, weil es dem Wesen der Geschichte
zufolge eine Entwickelung ist, muss über Stufen hinweggehen, die
einander ablösen, und von denen jede folgende neue immer nur unter der
Zertrümmerung der ihr vorangehenden Platz greifen kann.—ROTHE, _Ib._
April 19, 1865. Je grösser ein geschichtliches Princip ist, desto
langsamer und über mehr Stufen hinweg entfaltet es seinen Gehalt;
desto langlebiger ist es aber ebendeshalb auch in diesen seinen
unaufhörlichen Abwandelungen.—ROTHE, _Stille Stunden_, 301. Der
christliche Glaube geht nicht von der Anerkennung abstracter
Lehrwahrheiten aus, sondern von der Anerkennung einer Reihe von
Thatsachen, die in der Erscheinung Jesu ihren Mittelpunkt
haben.—NITZSCH, _Dogmengeschichte_, i. 17. Der Gedankengang der
evangelischen Erzählung gibt darum auch eine vollständige Darstellung
der christlichen Lehre in ihren wesentlichen Grundzügen; aber er gibt
sie im allseitigen lebendigen Zusammenhange mit der Geschichte der
christlichen Offenbarung, und nicht in einer theoretisch
zusammenhängenden Folgenreihe von ethischen und dogmatischen
Lehrsätzen.—DEUTINGER, _Reich Gottes_, i. p. v.

[42] L'Univers ne doit pas estre considéré seulement dans ce
qu'il est; pour le bien connoître, il faut le voir aussi dans ce qu'il
doit estre. C'est cet avenir surtout qui a été le grand objet de Dieu
dans la création, et c'est pour cet avenir seul que le présent
existe.—D'HOUTEVILLE, _Essai sur la Providence_, 273. La Providence
emploie les siècles à élever toujours un plus grand nombre de familles
et d'individus à ces biens de la liberté et de l'égalité légitimes
que, dans l'enfance des sociétés, la force avait rendus le privilège
de quelques-uns.—GUIZOT, _Gouvernement de la France_, 1820, 9. La
marche de la Providence n'est pas assujettie à d'étroites limites;
elle ne s'inquiète pas de tirer aujourd'hui la conséquence du principe
qu'elle a posé hier; elle la tirera dans des siècles, quand l'heure
sera venue; et pour raisonner lentement selon nous, sa logique n'est
pas moins sûre.—GUIZOT, _Histoire de la Civilisation_, 20. Der Keim
fortschreitender Entwicklung ist, auch auf göttlichem Geheisse, der
Menschheit eingepflanzt. Die Weltgeschichte ist der blosse Ausdruck
einer vorbestimmten Entwicklung.—A. HUMBOLDT, January 2, 1842, _Im
Neuen Reich_, 1872, i. 197. Das historisch grosse ist religiös gross;
es ist die Gottheit selbst, die sich offenbart.—RAUMER, April 1807,
_Erinnerungen_, i. 85.

[43] Je suis arrivé à l'âge où je suis, à travers bien des
évènements différents, mais avec une seule cause, celle de la liberté
régulière.—TOCQUEVILLE, May 1, 1852, _Œuvres Inédites_, ii. 185.
Me trouvant dans un pays où la religion et le libéralisme sont
d'accord, j'avais respiré.—J'exprimais ce sentiment, il y a plus de
vingt ans, dans l'avant-propos de la _Démocratie_. Je l'éprouve
aujourd'hui aussi vivement que si j'étais encore jeune, et je ne sais
s'il y a une seule pensée qui ait été plus constamment présente à mon
esprit.—August 5, 1857, _Œuvres_, vi. 395. Il n'y a que la liberté
(j'entends la modérée et la régulière) et la religion, qui, par un
effort combiné, puissent soulever les hommes au-dessus du bourbier où
l'égalité démocratique les plonge naturellement.—December 1, 1852,
_Œuvres_, vii. 295. L'un de mes rêves, le principal en entrant dans
la vie politique, était de travailler à concilier l'esprit libéral et
l'esprit de religion, la société nouvelle et l'église.—November 15,
1843, _Œuvres Inédites_, ii. 121. La véritable grandeur de l'homme
n'est que dans l'accord du sentiment libéral et du sentiment
religieux.—September 17, 1853, _Œuvres Inédites_, ii. 228. Qui
cherche dans la liberté autre chose qu'elle-même est fait pour
servir.—_Ancien Régime_, 248. Je regarde, ainsi que je l'ai toujours
fait, la liberté comme le premier des biens; je vois toujours en elle
l'une des sources les plus fécondes des vertus mâles et des actions
grandes. Il n'y a pas de tranquillité ni de bien-être qui puisse me
tenir lieu d'elle.—January 7, 1856, _Mme. Swetchine_, i. 452. La
liberté a un faux air d'aristocratie; en donnant pleine carrière aux
facultés humaines, en encourageant le travail et l'économie, elle fait
ressortir les supériorités naturelles ou acquises.—LABOULAYE, _L'État
et ses Limites_, 154. Dire que la liberté n'est point par elle-même,
qu'elle dépend d'une situation, d'une opportunité, c'est lui assigner
une valeur négative. La liberté n'est pas dès qu'on la subordonne.
Elle n'est pas un principe purement négatif, un simple élément de
contrôle et de critique. Elle est le principe actif, créateur
organisateur par excellence. Elle est le moteur et la règle, la source
de toute vie, et le principe de l'ordre. Elle est, en un mot, le nom
que prend la conscience souveraine, lorsque, se posant en face du
monde social et politique, elle émerge du moi pour modeler les
sociétés sur les données de la raison.—BRISSON, _Revue Nationale_,
xxiii. 214. Le droit, dans l'histoire, est le développement progressif
de la liberté, sous la loi de la raison.—LERMINIER, _Philosophie du
Droit_, i. 211. En prouvant par les leçons de l'histoire que la
liberté fait vivre les peuples et que le despotisme les tue, en
montrant que l'expiation suit la faute et que la fortune finit
d'ordinaire par se ranger du côté de la vertu, Montesquieu n'est ni
moins moral ni moins religieux que Bossuet.—LABOULAYE, _Œuvres de
Montesquieu_, ii. 109. Je ne comprendrais pas qu'une nation ne plaçât
pas les libertés politiques au premier rang, parce que c'est des
libertés politiques que doivent découler toutes les autres.—THIERS,
_Discours_, x. 8, _March_ 28, 1865. Nous sommes arrivés à une époque
où la liberté est le but sérieux de tous, où le reste n'est plus
qu'une question de moyens.—J. LEBEAU, _Observations sur le Pouvoir
Royal_: Liége, 1830, p. 10. Le libéralisme, ayant la prétention de se
fonder uniquement sur les principes de la raison, croit d'ordinaire
n'avoir pas besoin de tradition. Là est son erreur. L'erreur de
l'école libérale est d'avoir trop cru qu'il est facile de créer la
liberté par la réflexion, et de n'avoir pas vu qu'un établissement
n'est solide que quand il a des racines historiques.—RENAN, 1858,
_Nouvelle Revue_, lxxix. 596. Le respect des individus et des droits
existants est autant au-dessus du bonheur de tous, qu'un intérêt moral
surpasse un intérêt purement temporel.—RENAN, 1858, _Ib._ lxxix. 597.
Die Rechte gelten nichts, wo es sich handelt um das Recht, und das
Recht der Freiheit kann nie verjähren, weil es die Quelle alles
Rechtes selbst ist.—C. FRANTZ, _Ueber die Freiheit_, 110. Wir
erfahren hienieden nie die ganze Wahrheit: wir geniessen nie die ganze
Freiheit.—REUSS, _Reden_, 56. Le gouvernement constitutionnel, comme
tout gouvernement libre, présente et doit présenter un état de lutte
permanent. La liberté est la perpétuité de la lutte.—DE SERRE.
BROGLIE, _Nouvelles Études_, 243. The experiment of free government is
not one which can be tried once for all. Every generation must try it
for itself. As each new generation starts up to the responsibilities
of manhood, there is, as it were, a new launch of Liberty, and its
voyage of experiment begins afresh.—WINTHROP, _Addresses_, 163.
L'histoire perd son véritable caractère du moment que la liberté en a
disparu; elle devient une sorte de physique sociale. C'est l'élément
personnel de l'histoire qui en fait la réalité.—VACHEROT, _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, 1869, iv. 215. Demander la liberté pour soi et la
refuser aux autres, c'est la définition du despotisme.—LABOULAYE,
December 4, 1874. Les causes justes profitent de tout, des bonnes
intentions comme des mauvaises, des calculs personnels comme des
dévouemens courageux, de la démence, enfin, comme de la raison.—B.
CONSTANT, _Les Cent Jours_, ii. 29. Sie ist die Kunst, das Gute der
schon weit gediehenen Civilisation zu sichern.—BALTISCH, _Politische
Freiheit_, 9. In einem Volke, welches sich zur bürgerlichen
Gesellschaft, überhaupt zum Bewusstseyn der Unendlichkeit des
Freien—entwickelt hat, ist nur die constitutionelle Monarchie
möglich.—HEGEL'S _Philosophie des Rechts_, § 137, _Hegel und
Preussen_, 1841, 31. Freiheit ist das höchste Gut. Alles andere ist
nur das Mittel dazu: gut falls es ein Mittel dazu ist, übel falls es
dieselbe hemmt.—FICHTE, _Werke_, iv. 403. You are not to inquire how
your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and
powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured. For liberty
ought to be the direct end of your government.—PATRICK HENRY, 1788.
WIRT, _Life of Henry_, 272.

[44] Historiæ ipsius præter delectationem utilitas nulla est,
quam ut religionis Christianæ veritas demonstretur, quod aliter quam
per historiam fieri non potest.—LEIBNIZ, _Opera_, ed. Dutens, vi.
297. The study of Modern History is, next to Theology itself, and only
next in so far as Theology rests on a divine revelation, the most
thoroughly religious training that the mind can receive. It is no
paradox to say that Modern History, including Medieval History in the
term, is co-extensive in its field of view, in its habits of
criticism, in the persons of its most famous students, with
Ecclesiastical History.—STUBBS, _Lectures_, 9. Je regarde donc
l'étude de l'histoire comme l'étude de la providence.—L'histoire est
vraiment une seconde philosophie.—Si Dieu ne parle pas toujours, il
agit toujours en Dieu.—D'AGUESSEAU, _Œuvres_, xv. 34, 31, 35. Für
diejenigen, welche das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit erkannt haben,
bildet die denkende Betrachtung der Weltgeschichte, besonders des
christlichen Weltalters, die höchste, und umfassendste Theodicee.—VATKE,
_Die Menschliche Freiheit_, 1841, 516. La théologie, que l'on regarde
volontiers comme la plus étroite et la plus stérile des sciences, en
est, au contraire, la plus étendue et la plus féconde. Elle confine à
toutes les études et touche à toutes les questions. Elle renferme tous
les éléments d'une instruction libérale.—SCHERER, _Mélanges_, 522. The
belief that the course of events and the agency of man are subject to
the laws of a divine order, which it is alike impossible for any one
either fully to comprehend or effectually to resist—this belief is the
ground of all our hope for the future destinies of mankind.—THIRLWALL,
_Remains_, iii. 282. A true religion must consist of ideas and facts
both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere
philosophy; nor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are
the symbols, or out of which they are grounded; for then it would be
mere history.—COLERIDGE, _Table Talk_, 144. It certainly appears
strange that the men most conversant with the order of the visible
universe should soonest suspect it empty of directing mind; and, on
the other hand, that humanistic, moral and historical studies—which
first open the terrible problems of suffering and grief, and contain
all the reputed provocatives of denial and despair—should confirm, and
enlarge rather than disturb, the prepossessions of natural
piety.—MARTINEAU, _Essays_, i. 122. Die Religion hat nur dann eine
Bedeutung für den Menschen, wenn er in der Geschichte einen Punkt
findet, dem er sich völlig unbedingt hingeben kann.—STEFFENS,
_Christliche Religionsphilosophie_, 440, 1839. Wir erkennen darin nur
eine Thätigkeit des zu seinem ächten und wahren Leben, zu seinem
verlornen, objectiven Selbstverständnisse sich zurücksehnenden
christlichen Geistes unserer Zeit, einen Ausdruck für das Bedürfniss
desselben, sich aus den unwahren und unächten Verkleidungen, womit ihn
der moderne, subjective Geschmack der letzten Entwicklungsphase des
theologischen Bewusstseyns umhüllt hat, zu seiner historischen allein
wahren und ursprünglichen Gestalt wiederzugebären, zu derjenigen
Bedeutung zurückzukehren, die ihm in dem Bewusstseyn der Geschichte
allein zukommt und deren Verständniss in dem wogenden luxuriösen Leben
der modernen Theologie längst untergegangen ist.—GEORGII, _Zeitschrift
für Hist. Theologie_, ix. 5, 1839.

[45] Liberty, in fact, means just so far as it is realised,
the right man in the right place.—SEELEY, _Lectures and Essays_,
109.

[46] In diesem Sinne ist Freiheit und sich entwickelnde
moralische Vernunft und Gewissen gleichbedeutend. In diesem Sinne ist
der Mensch frei, sobald sich das Gewissen in ihm entwickelt.—SCHEIDLER,
_Ersch und Gruber_, xlix. 20. Aus der unendlichen und ewigen Geltung
der menschlichen Persönlichkeit vor Gott, aus der Vorstellung von der
in Gott freien Persönlichkeit, folgt auch der Anspruch auf das Recht
derselben in der weltlichen Sphäre, auf bürgerliche und politische
Freiheit, auf Gewissen und Religionsfreiheit, auf freie
wissenschaftliche Forschung u.s.w., und namentlich die Forderung dass
niemand lediglich zum Mittel für andere diene.—MARTENSEN, _Christliche
Ethik_, i. 50.

[47] Es giebt angeborne Menschenrechte, weil es angeborne
Menschenpflichten giebt.—WOLFF, _Naturrecht_; LŒPER, _Einleitung
zu Faust_, lvii.

[48] La constitution de l'état reste jusqu'à un certain point
à notre discrétion. La constitution de la société ne dépend pas de
nous; elle est donnée par la force des choses, et si l'on veut élever
le langage, elle est l'œuvre de la Providence.—RÉMUSAT, _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, 1861, v. 795.

[49] Die Freiheit ist bekanntlich kein Geschenk der Götter,
sondern ein Gut das jedes Volk sich selbst verdankt und das nur bei
dem erforderlichen Mass moralischer Kraft und Würdigkeit
gedeiht.—IHERING, _Geist des Römischen Rechts_, ii. 290. Liberty, in
the very nature of it, absolutely requires and even supposes, that
people be able to govern themselves in those respects in which they
are free; otherwise their wickedness will be in proportion to their
liberty, and this greatest of blessings will become a curse.—BUTLER,
_Sermons_, 331. In each degree and each variety of public development
there are corresponding institutions, best answering the public needs;
and what is meat to one is poison to another. Freedom is for those who
are fit for it.—PARKMAN, _Canada_, 396. Die Freiheit ist die Wurzel
einer neuen Schöpfung in der Schöpfung.—SEDERHOLM, _Die ewigen
Thatsachen_, 86.

[50] La liberté politique, qui n'est qu'une complexité plus
grande, de plus en plus grande, dans le gouvernement d'un peuple, à
mesure que le peuple lui-même contient un plus grand nombre de forces
diverses ayant droit et de vivre et de participer à la chose publique,
est un fait de civilisation qui s'impose lentement à une société
organisée, mais qui n'apparaît point comme un principe à une société
qui s'organise.—FAGUET, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1889, ii. 942.

[51] Il y a bien un droit du plus sage, mais non pas un droit
du plus fort.—La justice est le droit du plus faible.—JOUBERT,
_Pensées_, i. 355, 358.

[52] Nicht durch ein pflanzenähnliches Wachsthum, nicht aus
den dunklen Gründen der Volksempfindung, sondern durch den männlichen
Willen, durch die Ueberzeugung, durch die That, durch den Kampf
entsteht, behauptet, entwickelt sich das Recht. Sein historisches
Werden ist ein bewusstes, im hellen Mittagslicht der Erkenntniss und
der Gesetzgebung.—_Rundschau_, Nov. 1893, 313. Nicht das Normale,
Zahme, sondern das Abnorme, Wilde, bildet überall die Grundlage und
den Anfang einer neuen Ordnung.—LASAULX, _Philosophie der
Geschichte_, 143.

[53] Um den Sieg zu vervollständigen, erübrigte das zweite
Stadium oder die Aufgabe: die Berechtigung der Mehrheit nach allen
Seiten hin zur gleichen Berechtigung aller zu erweitern, d.h. bis zur
Gleichstellung aller Bekenntnisse im Kirchenrecht, aller Völker im
Völkerrecht, aller Staatsbürger im Staatsrecht und aller socialen
Interessen im Gesellschaftsrecht fortzuführen.—A. SCHMIDT, _Züricher
Monatschrift_, i. 68.

[54] Notre histoire ne nous enseignait nullement la liberté.
Le jour où la France voulut être libre, elle eut tout à créer, tout à
inventer dans cet ordre de faits.—Cependant il faut marcher, l'avenir
appelle les peuples. Quand on n'a point pour cela l'impulsion du
passé, il faut bien se confier à la raison.—DUPONT WHITE, _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, 1861, vi. 191. Le peuple français a peu de goût pour le
développement graduel des institutions. Il ignore son histoire, il ne
s'y reconnaît pas, elle n'a pas laissé de trace dans sa
conscience.—SCHERER, _Études Critiques_, i. 100. Durch die Revolution
befreiten sich die Franzosen von ihrer Geschichte.—ROSENKRANZ, _Aus
einem Tagebuch_, 199.

[55] The discovery of the comparative method in philology, in
mythology—let me add in politics and history and the whole range of
human thought—marks a stage in the progress of the human mind at
least as great and memorable as the revival of Greek and Latin
learning.—FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_, iv. 301. The diffusion of a
critical spirit in history and literature is affecting the criticism
of the Bible in our own day in a manner not unlike the burst of
intellectual life in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.—JOWETT,
_Essays and Reviews_, 346. As the revival of literature in the
sixteenth century produced the Reformation, so the growth of the
critical spirit, and the change that has come over mental science, and
the mere increase of knowledge of all kinds, threaten now a revolution
less external but not less profound.—HADDAN, _Replies_, 348.

[56] In his just contempt and detestation of the crimes and
follies of the Revolutionists, he suffers himself to forget that the
revolution itself is a process of the Divine Providence, and that as
the folly of men is the wisdom of God, so are their iniquities
instruments of His goodness.—COLERIDGE, _Biographia Literaria_, ii.
240. In other parts of the world, the idea of revolutions in
government is, by a mournful and indissoluble association, connected
with the idea of wars, and all the calamities attendant on wars. But
happy experience teaches us to view such revolutions in a very
different light—to consider them only as progressive steps in
improving the knowledge of government, and increasing the happiness of
society and mankind.—J. WILSON, November 26, 1787, _Works_, iii. 293.
La Révolution, c'est-à-dire l'œuvre des siècles, ou, si vous
voulez, le renouvellement progressif de la société, ou encore, sa
nouvelle constitution.—RÉMUSAT, _Correspondance_, October 11, 1818. A
ses yeux loin d'avoir rompu le cours naturel des évènements, ni la
Révolution d'Angleterre, ni la nôtre, n'ont rien dit, rien fait, qui
n'eût été dit, souhaité, fait, ou tenté cent fois avant leur
explosion. “Il faut en ceci,” dit-il, “tout accorder à leurs
adversaires, les surpasser même en sévérité, ne regarder à leurs
accusations que pour y ajouter, s'ils en oublient; et puis les sommer
de dresser, à leur tour, le compte des erreurs, des crimes, et des
maux de ces temps et de ces pouvoirs qu'ils ont pris sous leur
garde.”—_Revue de Paris_, xvi. 303, on Guizot. Quant aux nouveautés
mises en œuvre par la Révolution Française on les retrouve une à
une, en remontant d'âge en âge, chez les philosophes du XVIIIe
siècle, chez les grands penseurs du XVIe, chez certains Pères
d'Église et jusque dans la République de Platon.—En présence de cette
belle continuité de l'histoire, qui ne fait pas plus de sauts que la
nature, devant cette solidarité nécessaire des révolutions avec le
passé qu'elles brisent.—KRANTZ, _Revue Politique_, xxxiii. 264.
L'esprit du XIXe siècle est de comprendre et de juger les choses du
passé. Notre œuvre est d'expliquer ce que le XVIIIe siècle avait
mission de nier.—VACHEROT, _De la Démocratie_, pref., 28.

[57] La commission recherchera, dans toutes les parties des
archives pontificales, les pièces relatives à l'abus que les papes ont
fait de leur ministère spirituel contre l'autorité des souverains et
la tranquillité des peuples.—DAUNOU, _Instructions_, Jan. 3, 1811.
LABORDE, _Inventaires_, p. cxii.

[58] Aucun des historiens remarquables de cette époque
n'avait senti encore le besoin de chercher les faits hors des livres
imprimés, aux sources primitives, la plupart inédites alors, aux
manuscrits de nos bibliothèques, aux documents de nos archives.—MICHELET,
_Histoire de France_, 1869, i. 2.

[59] Doch besteht eine Grenze, wo die Geschichte aufhört und
das Archiv anfängt, und die von der Geschichtschreibung nicht
überschritten werden sollte. _Unsere Zeit_, 1866, ii. 635. Il faut
avertir nos jeunes historiens à la fois de la nécessité inéluctable du
document et, d'autre part, du danger qu'il présente.—M. HANOTAUX.

[60] This process consists in determining with documentary
proofs, and by minute investigations duly set forth, the literal,
precise, and positive inferences to be drawn at the present day from
every authentic statement, without regard to commonly received
notions, to sweeping generalities, or to possible consequences.—HARRISSE,
_Discovery of America_, 1892, p. vi. Perhaps the time has not yet come
for synthetic labours in the sphere of History. It may be that the
student of the Past must still content himself with critical
inquiries.—_Ib._ p. v. Few scholars are critics, few critics are
philosophers, and few philosophers look with equal care on both sides
of a question.—W. S. LANDOR in HOLYOAKE'S _Agitator's Life_, ii. 15.
Introduire dans l'histoire, et sans tenir compte des passions
politiques et religieuses, le doute méthodique que Descartes, le
premier, appliqua à l'étude de la philosophie, n'est-ce pas là une
excellente méthode? n'est-ce pas même la meilleure?—CHANTELAUZE,
_Correspondant_, 1883, i. 129. La critique historique ne sera jamais
populaire. Comme elle est de toutes les sciences la plus délicate, la
plus déliée, elle n'a de crédit qu'auprès des esprits cultivés.—CHERBULIEZ,
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, xcvii. 517. Nun liefert aber die Kritik, wenn
sie rechter Art ist, immer nur einzelne Data, gleichsam die Atome des
Thatbestandes, und jede Kombination, jede Zusammenfassung und
Schlussfolgerung, ohne die es doch einmal nicht abgeht, ist ein
subjektiver Akt des Forschers. Demnach blieb Waitz, bei der eigenen
Arbeit wie bei jener der anderen, immer höchst mistrauisch gegen jedes
Résumé, jede Definition, jedes abschliessende Wort.—SYBEL,
_Historische Zeitschrift_, lvi. 484. Mit blosser Kritik wird darin
nichts ausgerichtet, denn die ist nur eine Vorarbeit, welche da
aufhört wo die echte historische Kunst anfängt.—LASAULX, _Philosophie
der Künste_, 212.

[61] The only case in which such extraneous matters can be
fairly called in is when facts are stated resting on testimony; then
it is not only just, but it is necessary for the sake of truth, to
inquire into the habits of mind of him by whom they are
adduced.—BABBAGE, _Bridgewater Treatise_, p. xiv.

[62] There is no part of our knowledge which it is more
useful to obtain at first hand—to go to the fountain-head for—than
our knowledge of History.—J. S. MILL, _Inaugural Address_, 34. The
only sound intellects are those which, in the first instance, set
their standard of proof high.—J. S. MILL, _Examination of Hamilton's
Philosophy_, 525.

[63] There are so few men mentally capable of seeing both
sides of a question; so few with consciences sensitively alive to the
obligation of seeing both sides; so few placed under conditions either
of circumstance or temper, which admit of their seeing both
sides.—GREG, _Political Problems_, 1870, 173. Il n'y a que les
Allemands qui sachent être aussi complètement objectifs. Ils se
dédoublent, pour ainsi dire, en deux hommes, l'un qui a des principes
très arrêtés et des passions très vives, l'autre qui sait voir et
observer comme s'il n'en avait point.—LAVELEYE, _Revue des Deux
Mondes_, 1868, i. 431. L'écrivain qui penche trop dans le sens où il
incline, et qui ne se défie pas de ses qualités presque autant que ses
défauts, cet écrivain tourne à la manière.—SCHERER, _Mélanges_, 484.
Il faut faire volte-face, et vivement, franchement, tourner le dos au
moyen âge, à ce passé morbide, qui, même quand il n'agit pas, influe
terriblement par la contagion de la mort. Il ne faut ni combattre, ni
critiquer, mais oublier. Oublions et marchons!—MICHELET, _La Bible de
l'Humanité_, 483. It has excited surprise that Thucydides should speak
of Antiphon, the traitor to the democracy, and the employer of
assassins, as “a man inferior in virtue to none of his
contemporaries.” But neither here nor elsewhere does Thucydides pass
moral judgments.—JOWETT, _Thucydides_, ii. 501.

[64] Non theologi provinciam suscepimus; scimus enim quantum
hoc ingenii nostri tenuitatem superet: ideo sufficit nobis τὀ ὅτι
fideliter ex antiquis auctoribus retulisse.—MORINUS, _De
Pœnitentia_, ix. 10.—Il faut avouer que la religion chrétienne a
quelque chose d'étonnant! C'est parce que vous y êtes né, dira-t-on.
Tant s'en faut, je me roidis contre par cette raison-là même, de peur
que cette prévention ne me suborne.—PASCAL, _Pensées_, XVI., 7.—I
was fond of Fleury for a reason which I express in the advertisement;
because it presented a sort of photograph of ecclesiastical history
without any comment upon it. In the event, that simple representation
of the early centuries had a good deal to do with unsettling
me.—NEWMAN, _Apologia_, 152.—Nur was sich vor dem Richterstuhl einer
ächten, unbefangenen, nicht durch die Brille einer philosophischen
oder dogmatischen Schule stehenden Wissenschaft als wahr bewährt, kann
zur Erbauung, Belehrung und Warnung tüchtig seyn.—NEANDER,
_Kirchengeschichte_, i. p. vii. Wie weit bei katholischen Publicisten
bei der Annahme der Ansicht von der Staatsanstalt apologetische
Gesichtspunkte massgebend gewesen sind, mag dahingestellt bleiben. Der
Historiker darf sich jedoch nie durch apologetische Zwecke leiten
lassen; sein einziges Ziel soll die Ergründungder Wahrheit
sein.—PASTOR, _Geschichte der Päbste_, ii. 545. Church history
falsely written is a school of vainglory, hatred, and uncharitableness;
truly written, it is a discipline of humility, of charity, of mutual
love.—SIR W. HAMILTON, _Discussions_, 506. The more trophies and
crowns of honour the Church of former ages can be shown to have won in
the service of her adorable head, the more tokens her history can be
brought to furnish of his powerful presence in her midst, the more
will we be pleased and rejoice, Protestant though we be.—NEVIN,
_Mercersburg Review_, 1851, 168. S'il est une chose à laquelle j'ai
donné tous mes soins, c'est à ne pas laisser influencer mes jugements
par les opinions politiques ou religieuses; que si j'ai quelquefois
péché par quelque excès, c'est par la bienveillance pour les œuvres de
ceux qui pensent autrement que moi.—MONOD, _R. Hist._, xvi. 184. Nous
n'avons nul intérêt à faire parler l'histoire en faveur de nos
propres opinions. C'est son droit imprescriptible que le narrateur
reproduise tous les faits sans aucune réticence et range toutes les
évolutions dans leur ordre naturel. Notre récit restera complètement
en dehors des préoccupations de la dogmatique et des déclamations de
la polémique. Plus les questions auxquelles nous aurons à toucher
agitent et passionnent de nos jours les esprits, plus il est du devoir
de l'historien de s'effacer devant les faits qu'il veut faire
connaître.—REUSS, _Nouvelle Revue de Théologie_, vi. 193, 1860. To
love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection
in this world, and the seed plot of all other virtues.—LOCKE, _Letter
to Collins_. Il n'est plus possible aujourd'hui à l'historien d'être
national dans le sens étroit du mot. Son patriotisme à lui c'est
l'amour de la vérité. Il n'est pas l'homme d'une race ou d'un pays, il
est l'homme de tous les pays, il parle au nom de la civilisation
générale.—LANFREY, _Hist. de Nap._, iii. 2, 1870. Juger avec les
parties de soi-même qui sont le moins des formes du tempérament, et le
plus des facultés pénétrées et modelées par l'expérience, par l'étude,
par l'investigation, par le non-moi.—FAGUET, _R. de Paris_, i. 151.
Aucun critique n'est aussi impersonnel que lui, aussi libre de parti
pris et d'opinions préconçues, aussi objectif.—Il ne mêle ou parait
mêler à ses appréciations ni inclinations personnelles de goût ou
d'humeur, ou théories d'aucune sorte.—G. MONOD, of Faguet, _Revue
Historique_, xlii. 417. On dirait qu'il a peur, en généralisant ses
observations, en systématisant ses connaissances, de mêler de lui-même
aux choses.—Je lis tout un volume de M. Faguet, sans penser une fois
à M. Faguet: je ne vois que les originaux qu'il montre.—J'envisage
toujours une réalité objective, jamais l'idée de M. Faguet, jamais la
doctrine de M. Faguet.—LANSON, _Revue Politique_, 1894, i. 98.

[65] It should teach us to disentangle principles first from
parties, and again from one another; first of all as showing how
imperfectly all parties represent their own principles, and then how
the principles themselves are a mingled tissue.—ARNOLD, _Modern
History_, 184. I find it a good rule, when I am contemplating a person
from whom I want to learn, always to look out for his strength, being
confident that the weakness will discover itself.—MAURICE, _Essays_,
305. We may seek for agreement somewhere with our neighbours, using
that as a point of departure for the sake of argument. It is this
latter course that I wish here to explain and defend. The method is
simple enough, though not yet very familiar.—It aims at conciliation;
it proceeds by making the best of our opponent's case, instead of
taking him at his worst.—The most interesting part of every disputed
question only begins to appear when the rival ideals admit each
other's right to exist.—A. SIDGWICK, _Distinction and the Criticism
of Beliefs_, 1892, 211. That cruel reticence in the breasts of wise
men which makes them always hide their deeper thought.—RUSKIN,
_Sesame and Lilies_, i. 16. Je offener wir die einzelnen Wahrheiten
des Sozialismus anerkennen, desto erfolgreicher können wir seine
fundamentalen Unwahrheiten widerlegen.—ROSCHER, _Deutsche
Vierteljahrschrift_, 1849, i. 177.

[66] Dann habe ihn die Wahrnehmung, dass manche Angaben in
den historischen Romanen Walter Scott's, mit den gleichzeitigen
Quellen im Widerspruch standen, “mit Erstaunen” erfüllt, und ihn zu
dem Entschlusse gebracht, auf das Gewissenhafteste an der
Ueberlieferung der Quellen festzuhalten.—SYBEL, _Gedächtnissrede auf
Ranke_. _Akad. der Wissenschaften_, 1887, p. 6. Sich frei zu halten
von allem Widerschein der Gegenwart, sogar, soweit das menschenmöglich,
von dem der eignen subjectiven Meinung in den Dingen des Staates, der
Kirche und der Gesellschaft.—A. DOVE, _Im Neuen Reich_, 1875, ii. 967.
Wir sind durchaus nicht für die leblose und schemenartige
Darstellungsweise der Ranke'schen Schule eingenommen; es wird uns
immer kühl bis ans Herz heran, wenn wir derartige Schilderungen der
Reformation und der Revolution lesen, welche so ganz im kühlen Element
des Pragmatismus sich bewegen und dabei so ganz Undinenhaft sind und
keine Seele haben.—Wir lassen es uns lieber gefallen, dass die Männer
der Geschichte hier und dort gehofmeistert werden, als dass sie uns
mit Glasaugen ansehen, so meisterhaft immer die Kunst sein mag die sie
ihnen eingesetzt hat.—GOTTSCHALL, _Unsere Zeit_, 1866, ii. 636, 637. A
vivre avec des diplomates, il leur a pris des qualités qui sont un
défaut chez un historien. L'historien n'est pas un témoin, c'est un
juge; c'est à lui d'accuser et de condamner au nom du passé opprimé et
dans l'intérêt de l'avenir.—LABOULAYE on RANKE. _Débats_, January 12,
1852.

[67] Un théologien qui a composé une éloquente histoire de la
Réformation, rencontrant à Berlin un illustre historien qui, lui
aussi, a raconté Luther et le XVIe siècle, l'embrassa avec effusion
en le traitant de confrère. “Ah! permettez,” lui répondit l'autre en
se dégageant, “il y a une grande différence entre nous: vous êtes
avant tout chrétien, et je suis avant tout historien.”—CHERBULIEZ,
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1872, i. 537.

[68] Nackte Wahrheit ohne allen Schmuck; gründliche
Erforschung des Einzelnen; das Uebrige, Gott befohlen.—_Werke_,
xxxiv. 24. Ce ne sont pas les théories qui doivent nous servir de base
dans la recherche des faits, mais ce sont les faits qui doivent nous
servir de base pour la composition des théories.—VINCENT, _Nouvelle
Revue de Théologie_, 1859, ii. 252.

[69] Die zwanglose Anordnungs—die leichte und leise
Andeutungskunst des grossen Historikers voll zu würdigen, hinderte ihn
in früherer Zeit sein Bedürfniss nach scharfer begrifflicher Ordnung
und Ausführung, später, und in immer zunehmenden Grade, sein Sinn für
strenge Sachlichkeit, und genaue Erforschung der ursächlichen
Zusammenhänge, noch mehr aber regte sich seine geradherzige Offenheit
seine männliche Ehrlichkeit, wenn er hinter den fein verstrichenen
Farben der Rankeschen Erzählungsbilder die gedeckte Haltung des klugen
Diplomaten zu entdecken glaubte.—HAYM, _Duncker's Leben_, 437. The
ground of criticism is indeed, in my opinion, nothing else but
distinct attention, which every reader should endeavour to be master
of.—HARE, _Dec._, 1736, _Warburton's Works_, xiv. 98. Wenn die
Quellenkritik so verstanden wird, als sei sie der Nachweis, wie ein
Autor den andern benutzt hat, so ist das nur ein gelegentliches
Mittel—eins unter anderen—ihre Aufgabe, den Nachweis der Richtigkeit
zu lösen oder vorzubereiten.—DROYSEN, _Historik_, 18.

[70] L'esprit scientifique n'est autre en soi que l'instinct
du travail et de la patience, le sentiment de l'ordre, de la réalité
et de la mesure.—PAPILLON, _R. des Deux Mondes_, 1873, v. 704. Non
seulement les sciences, mais toutes les institutions humaines s'organisent
de même, et sous l'empire des mêmes idées régulatrices.—COURNOT,
_Idées Fondamentales_, i. 4. There is no branch of human work whose
constant laws have not close analogy with those which govern every
other mode of man's exertion. But more than this, exactly as we reduce
to greater simplicity and surety any one group of these practical
laws, we shall find them passing the mere condition of connection or
analogy, and becoming the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or
fibre of the mighty laws which govern the moral world.—RUSKIN, _Seven
Lamps_, 4. The sum total of all intellectual excellence is good sense
and method. When these have passed into the instinctive readiness of
habit, when the wheel revolves so rapidly that we cannot see it
revolve at all, then we call the combination genius. But in all modes
alike, and in all professions, the two sole component parts, even of
genius, are good sense and method.—COLERIDGE, _June_, 1814, _Mem. of
Coleorton_, ii. 172. Si l'exercice d'un art nous empêche d'en
apprendre un autre, il n'en est pas ainsi dans les sciences: la
connoissance d'une vérité nous aide à en decouvrir une autre.—Toutes
les sciences sont tellement liées ensemble qu'il est bien plus facile
de les apprendre toutes à la fois que d'en apprendre une seule en la
détachant des autres.—Il ne doit songer qu'à augmenter les lumières
naturelles de sa raison, non pour résoudre telle ou telle difficulté
de l'école, mais pour que dans chaque circonstance de la vie son
intelligence montre d'avance à sa volonté le parti qu'elle doit
prendre.—DESCARTES, _Œuvres Choisies_, 300, 301. _Règles pour la
Direction de l'Esprit._ La connaissance de la méthode qui a guidé
l'homme de génie n'est pas moins utile au progrès de la science et
même à sa propre gloire, que ses découvertes.—LAPLACE, _Système du
Monde_, ii. 371. On ne fait rien sans idées préconçues, il faut avoir
seulement la sagesse de ne croire à leurs déductions qu'autant que
l'expérience les confirme. Les idées préconçues, soumises au contrôle
sévère de l'expérimentation, sont la flamme vivante des sciences
d'observation; les idées fixes en sont le danger.—PASTEUR, in
_Histoire d'un Savant_, 284. Douter des vérités humaines, c'est ouvrir
la porte aux découvertes; en faire des articles de foi, c'est la
fermer.—DUMAS, _Discours_, i. 123.

[71] We should not only become familiar with the laws of
phenomena within our own pursuit, but also with the modes of thought
of men engaged in other discussions and researches, and even with the
laws of knowledge itself, that highest philosophy.—Above all things,
know that we call you not here to run your minds into our moulds. We
call you here on an excursion, on an adventure, on a voyage of
discovery into space as yet uncharted.—ALLBUTT, _Introductory Address
at St. George's_, October 1889. Consistency in regard to opinions is
the slow poison of intellectual life.—DAVY, _Memoirs_, 68.

[72] Ce sont vous autres physiologistes des corps vivants,
qui avez appris à nous autres physiologistes de la société (qui est
aussi un corps vivant) la manière de l'observer et de tirer des
conséquences de nos observations.—J. B. SAY to DE CANDOLLE, June 1,
1827.—DE CANDOLLE, _Mémoires_, 567.

[73] Success is certain to the pure and true: success to
falsehood and corruption, tyranny and aggression, is only the prelude
to a greater and an irremediable fall.—STUBBS, _Seventeen Lectures_,
20. The Carlylean faith, that the cause we fight for, so far as it is
true, is sure of victory, is the necessary basis of all effective
activity for good.—CAIRD, _Evolution of Religion_, ii. 43. It is the
property of truth to be fearless, and to prove victorious over every
adversary. Sound reasoning and truth, when adequately communicated,
must always be victorious over error.—GODWIN, _Political Justice_
(Conclusion). Vice was obliged to retire and give place to virtue.
This will always be the consequence when truth has fair play.
Falsehood only dreads the attack, and cries out for auxiliaries. Truth
never fears the encounter; she scorns the aid of the secular arm, and
triumphs by her natural strength.—FRANKLIN, _Works_, ii. 292. It is a
condition of our race that we must ever wade through error in our
advance towards truth: and it may even be said that in many cases we
exhaust almost every variety of error before we attain the desired
goal.—BABBAGE, _Bridgewater Treatise_, 27. Les hommes ne peuvent, en
quelque genre que ce soit, arriver à quelque chose de raisonnable
qu'après avoir, en ce même genre, épuisé toutes les sottises
imaginables. Que de sottises ne dirions-nous pas maintenant, si les
anciens ne les avaient pas déjà dites avant nous, et ne nous les
avaient, pour ainsi dire, enlevées!—FONTENELLE. Without premature
generalisations the true generalisation would never be arrived at.—H.
SPENCER, _Essays_, ii. 57. The more important the subject of
difference, the greater, not the less, will be the indulgence of him
who has learned to trace the sources of human error,—of error, that
has its origin not in our weakness and imperfection merely, but often
in the most virtuous affections of the heart.—BROWN, _Philosophy of
the Human Mind_, i. 48, 1824. Parmi les châtiments du crime qui ne lui
manquent jamais, à côté de celui que lui inflige la conscience,
l'histoire lui en inflige un autre encore, éclatant et manifeste,
l'impuissance.—COUSIN, _Phil. Mod._ ii. 24. L'avenir de la science
est garanti; car dans le grand livre scientifique tout s'ajoute et
rien ne se perd. L'erreur ne fonde pas; aucune erreur ne dure très
longtemps.—RENAN, _Feuilles Détachées_, xiii. Toutes les fois que
deux hommes sont d'un avis contraire sur la même chose, à coup sûr,
l'un ou l'autre se trompe; bien plus, aucun ne semble posséder la
vérité; car si les raisons de l'un étoient certaines et évidentes, il
pourroit les exposer à l'autre de telle manière qu'il finiroit par le
convaincre également.—DESCARTES, _Règles: Œuvres Choisies_, 302.
Le premier principe de la critique est qu'une doctrine ne captive ses
adhérents que par ce qu'elle a de légitime.—RENAN, _Essais de
Morale_, 184. Was dem Wahn solche Macht giebt ist wirklich nicht er
selbst, sondern die ihm zu Grunde liegende und darin nur verzerrte
Wahrheit.—FRANTZ, _Schelling's Philosophie_, i. 62. Quand les hommes
ont vu une fois la vérité dans son éclat, ils ne peuvent plus
l'oublier. Elle reste debout, et tôt ou tard elle triomphe, parce
qu'elle est la pensée de Dieu et le besoin du monde.—MIGNET,
_Portraits_, ii. 295. C'est toujours le sens commun inaperçu qui fait
la fortune des hypothèses auxquelles il se mêle.—COUSIN, _Fragments
Phil._ i. 51. Preface of 1826. Wer da sieht wie der Irrthum selbst ein
Träger mannigfaltigen und bleibenden Fortschritts wird, der wird auch
nicht so leicht aus dem thatsächlichen Fortschritt der Gegenwart auf
Unumstösslichkeit unserer Hypothesen schliessen.—Das richtigste
Resultat der geschichtlichen Betrachtung ist die akademische Ruhe, mit
welcher unsere Hypothesen und Theorieen ohne Feindschaft und ohne
Glauben als das betrachtet werden was sie sind; als Stufen in jener
unendlichen Annäherung an die Wahrheit, welche die Bestimmung unserer
intellectuellen Entwicklung zu sein scheint.—LANGE, _Geschichte des
Materialismus_, 502, 503. Hominum errores divina providentia reguntur,
ita ut sæpe male jacta bene cadant.—LEIBNIZ, ed. Klopp, i., p. lii.
Sainte-Beuve n'était même pas de la race des libéraux, c'est-à-dire
de ceux qui croient que, tout compte fait, et dans un état de
civilisation donné, le bien triomphe du mal à armes égales, et la
vérité de l'erreur.—D'HAUSSONVILLE, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1875, i.
567. In the progress of the human mind, a period of controversy
amongst the cultivators of any branch of science must necessarily
precede the period of unanimity.—TORRENS, _Essay on the Production of
Wealth_, 1821, p. xiii. Even the spread of an error is part of the
wide-world process by which we stumble into mere approximations to
truth.—L. STEPHEN, _Apology of an Agnostic_, 81. Errors, to be
dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them; it is
only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive
circulation.—S. SMITH, _Moral Philosophy_, 7. The admission of the
few errors of Newton himself is at least of as much importance to his
followers in science as the history of the progress of his real
discoveries.—YOUNG, _Works_, iii. 621. Error is almost always partial
truth, and so consists in the exaggeration or distortion of one verity
by the suppression of another, which qualifies and modifies the
former.—MIVART, _Genesis of Species_, 3. The attainment of scientific
truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific
errors.—HUXLEY: WARD, _Reign of Victoria_, ii. 337. Jede neue tief
eingreifende Wahrheit hat meiner Ansicht nach erst das Stadium der
Einseitigkeit durchzumachen.—IHERING, _Geist des R. Rechts_, ii. 22.
The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished
convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful
whatever is right in them will become.—RUSKIN, _Ethics of the Dust_,
225. They hardly grasp the plain truth unless they examine the error
which it cancels.—CORY, _Modern English History_, 1880, i. 109. Nur
durch Irrthum kommen wir, der eine kürzeren und glücklicheren
Schrittes, als der andere, zur Wahrheit; und die Geschichte darf
nirgends diese Verirrungen übergehen, wenn sie Lehrerin und Warnerin
für die nachfolgenden Geschlechter werden will.—_Münchner Gel.
Anzeigen_, 1840, i. 737.

[74] Wie die Weltgeschichte das Weltgericht ist, so kann in
noch allgemeinerem Sinne gesagt werden, dass das gerechte Gericht,
d.h. die wahre Kritik einer Sache, nur in ihrer Geschichte liegen
kann. Insbesondere in der Hinsicht lehrt die Geschichte denjenigen,
der ihr folgt, ihre eigene Methode, dass ihr Fortschritt niemals ein
reines Vernichten, sondern nur ein Aufheben im philosophischen Sinne
ist.—STRAUSS, _Hallische Jahrbücher_, 1839, 120.

[75] Dans tous les livres qu'il lit, et il en dévore des
quantités, Darwin ne note que les passages qui contrarient ses idées
systématiques.—Il collectionne les difficultés, les cas épineux, les
critiques possibles.—VERNIER, _Le Temps_, 6 Décembre, 1887. Je
demandais à un savant célèbre où il en était de ses recherches. “Cela
ne marche plus,” me dit-il, “je ne trouve plus de faits
contradictoires.” Ainsi le savant cherche à se contredire lui-même
pour faire avancer sa pensée.—JANET, _Journal des Savants_, 1892, 20.
Ein Umstand, der uns die Selbständigkeit des Ganges der Wissenschaft
anschaulich machen kann, ist auch der: dass der Irrthum, wenn er nur
gründlich behandelt wird, fast ebenso fördernd ist als das Finden der
Wahrheit, denn er erzeugt fortgesetzten Widerspruch.—BAER, _Blicke
auf die Entwicklung der Wissenschaft_, 120. It is only by virtue of
the opposition which it has surmounted that any truth can stand in the
human mind.—BISHOP TEMPLE; KINGLAKE, _Crimea_, _Winter Troubles_,
app. 104. I have for many years found it expedient to lay down a rule
for my own practice, to confine my reading mainly to those journals
the general line of opinions in which is adverse to my own.—HARE,
_Means of Unity_, i. 19. Kant had a harder struggle with himself than
he could possibly have had with any critic or opponent of his
philosophy.—CAIRD, _Philosophy of Kant_, 1889, i. p. ix.

[76] The social body is no more liable to arbitrary changes
than the individual body.—A full perception of the truth that society
is not a mere aggregate, but an organic growth, that it forms a whole
the laws of whose growth can be studied apart from those of the
individual atom, supplies the most characteristic postulate of modern
speculation.—L. STEPHEN, _Science of Ethics_, 31. Wie in dem Leben
des Einzelnen Menschen kein Augenblick eines vollkommenen Stillstandes
wahrgenommen wird, sondern stete organische Entwicklung, so verhält es
sich auch in dem Leben der Völker, und in jedem einzelnen Element,
woraus dieses Gesammtleben besteht. So finden wir in der Sprache stete
Fortbildung und Entwicklung, und auf gleiche Weise in dem Recht. Und
auch diese Fortbildung steht unter demselben Gesetz der Erzeugung aus
innerer Kraft und Nothwendigkeit, unabhängig von Zufall und
individueller Willkür, wie die ursprüngliche Entstehung.—SAVIGNY,
_System_, i. 16, 17. Seine eigene Entdeckung, dass auch die geistige
Produktion, bis in einem gewissen Punkte wenigstens, unter dem Gesetze
der Kausalität steht, dass jedeiner nur geben kann was er hat, nur hat
was er irgendwoher bekommen, muss auch für ihn selber gelten.—BEKKER,
_Das Recht des Besitzes bei den Römern_, 3, 1880. Die geschichtliche
Wandlung des Rechts, in welcher vergangene Jahrhunderte halb ein Spiel
des Zufalls und halb ein Werk vernünftelnder Willkür sahen, als
gesetzmässige Entwickelung zu begreifen, war das unsterbliche
Verdienst der von Männern wie Savigny, Eichhorn und Jacob Grimm
geführten historischen Rechtsschule.—GIERKE, _Rundschau_, xviii.
205.

[77] The only effective way of studying what is called the
philosophy of religion, or the philosophical criticism of religion, is
to study the history of religion. The true science of war is the
history of war, the true science of religion is, I believe, the
history of religion.—M. MÜLLER, _Theosophy_, 3, 4. La théologie ne
doit plus être que l'histoire des efforts spontanés tentés pour
résoudre le problème divin. L'histoire, en effet, est la forme
nécessaire de la science de tout ce qui est soumis aux lois de la vie
changeante et successive. La science de l'esprit humain, c'est de
même, l'histoire de l'esprit humain.—RENAN, _Averroës_, Pref. vi.

[78] Political economy is not a science, in any strict sense,
but a body of systematic knowledge gathered from the study of common
processes, which have been practised all down the history of the human
race in the production and distribution of wealth.—BONAMY PRICE,
_Social Science Congress_, 1878. Such a study is in harmony with the
best intellectual tendencies of our age, which is, more than anything
else, characterized by the universal supremacy of the historical
spirit. To such a degree has this spirit permeated all our modes of
thinking, that with respect to every branch of knowledge, no less than
with respect to every institution and every form of human activity, we
almost instinctively ask, not merely what is its existing condition,
but what were its earliest discoverable germs, and what has been the
course of its development.—INGRAM, _History of Political Economy_, 2.
Wir dagegen stehen keinen Augenblick an, die Nationalökonomie für eine
reine Erfahrungswissenschaft zu erklären, und die Geschichte ist uns
daher nicht Hülfsmittel, sondern Gegenstand selber.—ROSCHER,
_Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift_, 1849, i. 182. Der bei weitem grösste
Theil menschlicher Irrthümer beruhet darauf, dass man zeitlich und
örtlich Wahres oder Heilsames für absolut wahr oder heilsam ausgiebt.
Für jede Stufe der Volksentwickelung passt eine besondere
Staatsverfassung, die mit allen übrigen Verhältnissen des Volks als
Ursache und Wirkung auf's Innigste verbunden ist; so passt auch für
jede Entwickelungsstufe eine besondere Landwirthschaftsverfassung.—ROSCHER,
_Archiv f. p. Oek._, viii., 2 Heft 1845. Seitdem vor allen Roscher,
Hildebrand und Knies den Werth, die Berechtigung und die
Nothwendigkeit derselben unwiderleglich dargethan, hat sich immer
allgemeiner der Gedanke Bahn gebrochen dass diese Wissenschaft, die
bis dahin nur auf die Gegenwart, auf die Erkenntniss der bestehenden
Verhältnisse und die in ihnen sichtbaren Gesetze den Blick gerichtet
hatte, auch in die Vergangenheit, in die Erforschung der bereits
hinter uns liegenden wirthschaftlichen Entwicklung der Völker sich
vertiefen müsse.—SCHÖNBERG, _Jahrbücher f. Nationalökonomie und
Statistik_, Neue Folge, 1867, i. 1. Schmoller, moins dogmatique et
mettant comme une sorte de coquetterie à être incertain, démontre, par
les faits, la fausseté ou l'arbitraire de tous ces postulats, et
laisse l'économie politique se dissoudre dans l'histoire.—BRETON, _R.
de Paris_, ix. 67. Wer die politische Oekonomie Feuerlands unter
dieselben Gesetze bringen wollte mit der des heutigen Englands, würde
damit augenscheinlich nichts zu Tage fördern als den allerbanalsten
Gemeinplatz. Die politische Oekonomie ist somit wesentlich eine
historische Wissenschaft. Sie behandelt einen geschichtlichen, das
heisst einen stets wechselnden Stoff. Sie untersucht zunächst die
besondern Gesetze jeder einzelnen Entwicklungsstufe der Produktion und
des Austausches, und wird erst am Schluss dieser Untersuchung die
wenigen, für Produktion und Austausch überhaupt geltenden, ganz
allgemeinen Gesetze aufstellen können.—ENGELS, _Dührings Umwälzung der
Wissenschaft_, 1878, 121.

[79] History preserves the student from being led astray by a
too servile adherence to any system.—WOLOWSKI. No system can be
anything more than a history, not in the order of impression, but in
the order of arrangement by analogy.—DAVY, _Memoirs_, 68. Avec des
matériaux si nombreux et si importants, il fallait bien du courage
pour résister à la tentation de faire un système. De Saussure eut ce
courage, et nous en ferons le dernier trait et le trait principal de
son éloge.—CUVIER, _Éloge de Saussure_, 1810.

[80] C'était, en 1804, une idée heureuse et nouvelle,
d'appeler l'histoire au secours de la science, d'interroger les deux
grandes écoles rivales au profit de la vérité.—COUSIN, _Fragments
Littéraires_, 1843, 95, on Dégerando. No branch of philosophical
doctrine, indeed, can be fairly investigated or apprehended apart from
its history. All our systems of politics, morals, and metaphysics
would be different if we knew exactly how they grew up, and what
transformations they have undergone; if we knew, in short, the true
history of human ideas.—CLIFFE LESLIE, _Essays in Political and Moral
Philosophy_, 1879, 149. The history of philosophy must be rational and
philosophic. It must be philosophy itself, with all its elements, in
all their relations, and under all their laws represented in striking
characters by the hands of time and of history, in the manifested
progress of the human mind.—SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, _Edin. Rev._ l.
200, 1829. Il n'est point d'étude plus instructive, plus utile que
l'étude de l'histoire de la philosophie; car on y apprend à se
désabuser des philosophes, et l'on y désapprend la fausse science de
leurs systèmes.—ROYER COLLARD, _Œuvres de Reid_, iv. 426. On ne
peut guère échapper à la conviction que toutes les solutions des
questions philosophiques n'aient été développées ou indiquées avant le
commencement du dix-neuvième siècle, et que par conséquent il ne soit
très difficile, pour ne pas dire impossible, de tomber, en pareille
matière, sur une idée neuve de quelque importance. Or si cette
conviction est fondée, il s'ensuit que la science est faite.—JOUFFROY,
in DAMIRON, _Philosophie du XIXe Siècle_, 363. Le but dernier de tous
mes efforts, l'âme de mes écrits et de tout mon enseignement, c'est
l'identité de la philosophie et de son histoire.—COUSIN, _Cours de
1829_. Ma route est historique, il est vrai, mais mon but est
dogmatique; je tends à une théorie, et cette théorie je la demande à
l'histoire.—COUSIN, _Ph. du XVIIIe Siècle_, 15. L'histoire de la
philosophie est contrainte d'emprunter d'abord à la philosophie la
lumière qu'elle doit lui rendre un jour avec usure.—COUSIN, _Du Vrai_,
1855, 14. M. Cousin, durant tout son professorat de 1816 à 1829, a
pensé que l'histoire de la philosophie était la source de la
philosophie même. Nous ne croyons pas exagérer en lui prêtant cette
opinion.—B. ST. HILAIRE, _Victor Cousin_, i. 302. Il se hâta de
convertir le fait en loi, et proclama que la philosophie, étant
identique à son histoire, ne pouvait avoir une loi différente, et
était vouée à jamais à l'évolution fatale des quatre systèmes, se
contredisant toujours, mais se limitant, et se modérant, par cela même
de manière à maintenir l'equilibre, sinon l'harmonie de la pensée
humaine.—VACHEROT, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1868, iii. 957. Er hat
überhaupt das unvergängliche Verdienst, zuerst in Frankreich zu der
Erkenntniss gelangt zu sein, dass die menschliche Vernunft nur durch
das Studium des Gesetzes ihrer Entwickelungen begriffen werden
kann.—LAUSER, _Unsere Zeit_, 1868, i. 459. Le philosophe en quête du
vrai en soi, n'est plus réduit à ses conceptions individuelles; il est
riche du trésor amassé par l'humanité.—BOUTROUX, _Revue Politique_,
xxxvii. 802. L'histoire, je veux dire l'histoire de l'esprit humain,
est en ce sens la vraie philosophie de notre temps.—RENAN, _Études de
Morale_, 83. Die Philosophie wurde eine höchst bedeutende
Hülfswissenschaft der Geschichte, sie hat ihre Richtung auf das
Allgemeine gefördert, ihren Blick für dasselbe geschärft, und sie,
wenigstens durch ihre Vermittlung, mit Gesichtspuncten, Ideen,
bereichert die sie aus ihrem eigenen Schoosse sobald noch nicht
erzeugt haben würde. Weit die fruchtbarste darunter war die aus der
Naturwissenschaft geschöpfte Idee des organischen Lebens, dieselbe auf
der die neueste Philosophie selbst beruht. Die seit zwei bis drei
Jahrzehnten in der Behandlung der Geschichte eingetretene
durchgreifende Veränderung, wie die völlige Umgestaltung so mancher
anderen Wissenschaft ... ist der Hauptsache nach ihr Werk.—HAUG,
_Allgemeine Geschichte_, 1841, i. 22. Eine Geschichte der Philosophie
in eigentlichen Sinne wurde erst möglich als man an die Stelle der
Philosophen deren Systeme setzte, den inneren Zusammenhang zwischen
diesen feststellte und—wie Dilthey sagt—mitten in Wechsel der
Philosophien ein siegreiches Fortschreiten zur Wahrheit nachwies. Die
Gesammtheit der Philosophie stellt sich also dar als eine
geschichtliche Einheit.—SAUL, _Rundschau_, Feb. 1894, 307. Warum die
Philosophie eine Geschichte habe und haben müsse, blieb unerörtert, ja
ungeahnt, dass die Philosophie am meisten von allen Wissenschaften
historisch sei, denn man hatte in der Geschichte den Begriff der
Entwicklung nicht entdeckt.—MARBACH, _Griechische Philosophie_, 15.
Was bei oberflächlicher Betrachtung nur ein Gewirre einzelner Personen
und Meinungen zu sein schien, zeigt sich bei genauerer und gründlicherer
Untersuchung als eine geschichtliche Entwicklung, in der alles, bald
näher, bald entfernter, mit allem anderen zusammenhängt.—ZELLER,
_Rundschau_, Feb. 1894, 307. Nur die Philosophie, die an die
geschichtliche Entwickelung anknüpft kann auf bleibenden Erfolg auch
für die Zukunft rechnen und fortschreiten zu dem, was in der
bisherigen philosophischen Entwickelung nur erst unvollkommen erreicht
oder angestrebt worden ist. Kann sich doch die Philosophie überhaupt
und insbesondere die Metaphysik ihrer eigenen geschichtlichen
Entwickelung nicht entschlagen, sondern hat eine Geschichte der
Philosophie als eigene und zwar zugleich historische und spekulative
Disziplin, in deren geschichtlichen Entwickelungsphasen und
geschichtlich aufeinanderfolgenden Systemen der Philosophen die neuere
Spekulation seit Schelling and Hegel zugleich die Philosophie selbst
als ein die verschiedenen geschichtlichen Systeme umfassendes ganzes
in seiner dialektischen Gliederung erkannt hat.—GLOATZ, _Spekulative
Theologie_, i. 23. Die heutige Philosophie führt uns auf einen
Standpunkt von dem aus die philosophische Idee als das innere Wesen
der Geschichte selbst erscheint. So trat an die Stelle einer abstrakt
philosophischen Richtung, welche das Geschichtliche verneinte, eine
abstrakt geschichtliche Richtung welche das Philosophische
verläugnete. Beide Richtungen sind als überschrittene und besiegte zu
betrachten.—BERNER, _Strafrecht_, 75. Die Geschichte der Philosophie
hat uns fast schon die Wissenschaft der Philosophie selbst
ersetzt.—HERMANN, _Phil. Monatshefte_, ii. 198, 1889.

[81] Le siècle actuel sera principalement caractérisé par
l'irrévocable prépondérance de l'histoire, en philosophie, en
politique, et même en poésie.—COMTE, _Politique Positive_, iii. 1.

[82] The historical or comparative method has revolutionized
not only the sciences of law, mythology, and language, of anthropology
and sociology, but it has forced its way even into the domain of
philosophy and natural science. For what is the theory of evolution
itself, with all its far-reaching consequences, but the achievement of
the historical method?—PROTHERO, _Inaugural_. _National Review_,
_Dec._ 1894, 461. To facilitate the advancement of all the branches of
useful science, two things seem to be principally requisite. The first
is, an historical account of their rise, progress, and present state.
Without the former of these helps, a person every way qualified for
extending the bounds of science labours under great disadvantages;
wanting the lights which have been struck out by others, and
perpetually running the risk of losing his labour, and finding himself
anticipated.—PRIESTLEY, _History of Vision_, 1772, i. Pref. i.
Cuvier se proposait de montrer l'enchaînement scientifique des
découvertes, leurs relations avec les grands évènements historiques,
et leur influence sur les progrès et le développement de la
civilisation.—DARESTE, _Biographie Générale_, xii. 685. Dans ses
éloquentes leçons, l'histoire des sciences est devenue l'histoire même
de l'esprit humain; car, remontant aux causes de leurs progrès et de
leurs erreurs, c'est toujours dans les bonnes ou mauvaises routes
suivies par l'esprit humain, qu'il trouve ces causes.—FLOURENS,
_Éloge de Cuvier_, xxxi. Wie keine fortlaufende Entwickelungsreihe von
nur Einem Punkte aus vollkommen aufzufassen ist, so wird auch keine
lebendige Wissenschaft nur aus der Gegenwart begriffen werden
können.—Deswegen ist aber eine solche Darstellung doch noch nicht der
gesammten Wissenschaft adäquat, und sie birgt, wenn sie damit
verwechselt wird, starke Gefahren der Einseitigkeit, des Dogmatismus
und damit der Stagnation in sich. Diesen Gefahren kann wirksam nur
begegnet werden durch die verständige Betrachtung der Geschichte der
Wissenschaften, welche diese selbst in stetem Flusse zeigt und die
Tendenz ihres Fortschreitens in offenbarer und sicherer Weise
klarlegt.—ROSENBERGER, _Geschichte der Physik_, iii., p. vi. Die
Continuität in der Ausbildung aller Auffassungen tritt um so
deutlicher hervor, je vollständiger man sich damit, wie sie zu
verschiedenen Zeiten waren, vertraut macht.—KOPP, _Entwickelung der
Chemie_, 814.

[83] Die Geschichte und die Politik sind Ein und derselbe
Janus mit dem Doppelgesicht, das in der Geschichte in die
Vergangenheit, in der Politik in die Zukunft hinschaut.—GÜGLER'S
_Leben_, ii. 59.

[84] The papers inclosed, which give an account of the
killing of two men in the county of Londonderry; if they prove to be
Tories, 'tis very well they are gone.—I think it will not only be
necessary to grant those a pardon who killed them, but also that they
have some reward for their own and others' encouragement.—ESSEX,
_Letters_, 10, _Jan._ 10, 1675. The author of this happened to be
present. There was a meeting of some honest people in the city, upon
the occasion of the discovery of some attempt to stifle the evidence
of the witnesses.—Bedloe said he had letters from Ireland, that there
were some Tories to be brought over hither, who were privately to
murder Dr. Oates and the said Bedloe. The doctor, whose zeal was very
hot, could never after this hear any man talk against the plot, or
against the witnesses, but he thought he was one of these Tories, and
called almost every man a Tory that opposed him in discourse; till at
last the word Tory became popular.—DEFOE, _Edinburgh Review_, l.
403.

[85] La España será el primer pueblo en donde se encenderá
esta guerra patriotica que solo puede libertar á Europa.—Hemos oido
esto en Inglaterra á varios de los que estaban alli presentes. Muchas
veces ha oido lo mismo al duque de Wellington el general Don Miguel de
Alava, y dicho duque refirió el suceso en una comida diplomatica que
dió en Paris el duque de Richelieu en 1816.—TORENO, _Historia del
Levantamiento de España_, 1838, i. 508.

[86] Nunquam propter auctoritatem illorum, quamvis magni sint
nominis (supponimus scilicet semper nos cum eo agere qui scientiam
historicam vult consequi), sententias quas secuti sunt ipse tamquam
certas admittet, sed solummodo ob vim testimoniorum et argumentorum
quibus eas confirmarunt.—DE SMEDT, _Introductio ad historiam critice
tractandam_, 1866, i. 5.

[87] Hundert schwere Verbrechen wiegen nicht so schwer in der
Schale der Unsittlichkeit, als ein unsittliches Princip.—_Hallische
Jahrbücher_, 1839, 308. Il faut flétrir les crimes; mais il faut
aussi, et surtout, flétrir les doctrines et les systèmes qui tendent à
les justifier.—MORTIMER TERNAUX, _Histoire de la Terreur_.

[88] We see how good and evil mingle in the best of men and
in the best of causes; we learn to see with patience the men whom we
like best often in the wrong, and the repulsive men often in the
right; we learn to bear with patience the knowledge that the cause
which we love best has suffered, from the awkwardness of its
defenders, so great disparagement, as in strict equity to justify the
men who were assaulting it.—STUBBS, _Seventeen Lectures_, 97.

[89] Caeteris paribus, on trouvera tousjours que ceux qui ont
plus de puissance sont sujets à pécher davantage; et il n'y a point de
théorème de géométrie qui soit plus asseuré que cette proposition.—LEIBNIZ,
1688, ed. Rommel, ii. 197. Il y a toujours eu de la malignité dans la
grandeur, et de l'opposition à l'esprit de l'Évangile; mais maintenant
il y en a plus que jamais, et il semble que comme le monde va à sa
fin, celui qui est dans l'élévation fait tous ses efforts pour
dominer avec plus de tyrannie, et pour étouffer les maximes du
Christianisme et le règne de Jésus-Christ, voiant qu'il s'approche.—GODEAU,
_Lettres_, 423, March 27, 1667. There is, in fact, an unconquerable
tendency in all power, save that of knowledge, acting by and through
knowledge, to injure the mind of him by whom that power is
exercised.—WORDSWORTH, June 22, 1817. _Letters of Lake Poets_, 369.

[90] I cieli han messo sulla terra due giudici delle umane
azioni, la coscienza e la storia.—COLLETTA. Wenn gerade die edelsten
Männer um des Nachruhmes willen gearbeitet haben, so soll die
Geschichte ihre Belohnung sein, sie auch die Strafe für die
Schlechten.—LASAULX, _Philosophie der Künste_, 211. Pour juger ce qui
est bon et juste dans la vie actuelle ou passée, il faut posséder un
criterium, qui ne soit pas tiré du passé ou du présent, mais de la
nature humaine.—AHRENS, _Cours de Droit Naturel_, i. 67.

[91] L'homme de notre temps! La conscience moderne! Voilà
encore de ces termes qui nous ramènent la prétendue philosophie de
l'histoire et la doctrine du progrès, quand il s'agit de la justice,
c'est-à-dire de la conscience pure et de l'homme rationnel, que
d'autres siècles encore que le nôtre ont connu.—RENOUVIER, _Crit.
Phil._ 1873, ii. 55.

[92] Il faut pardonner aux grands hommes le marchepied de
leur grandeur.—COUSIN, in J. SIMON, _Nos Hommes d'État_, 1887, 55.
L'esprit du XVIIIe siècle n'a pas besoin d'apologie: l'apologie d'un
siècle est dans son existence.—COUSIN, _Fragments_, iii. 1826.
Suspendus aux lèvres éloquentes de M. Cousin, nous l'entendîmes
s'écrier que la meilleure cause l'emportait toujours, que c'était la
loi de l'histoire, le rhythme immuable du progrès.—GASPARIN, _La
Liberté Morale_, ii. 63. Cousin verurtheilen heisst darum nichts
Anderes als jenen Geist historischer Betrachtung verdammen, durch
welchen das 19 Jahrhundert die revolutionäre Kritik des 18
Jahrhunderts ergänzt, durch welchen insbesondere Deutschland die
geistigen Wohlthaten vergolten hat, welche es im Zeitalter der
Aufklärung von seinen westlichen Nachbarn empfangen.—IODL, _Gesch.
der Ethik_, ii. 295. Der Gang der Weltgeschichte steht ausserhalb der
Tugend, des Lasters, und der Gerechtigkeit.—HEGEL, _Werke_, viii.
425. Die Vermischung des Zufälligen im Individuum mit dem an ihm
Historischen führt zu unzähligen falschen Ansichten und Urtheilen.
Hierzu gehört namentlich alles Absprechen über die moralische
Tüchtigkeit der Individuen, und die Verwunderung, welche his zur
Verzweiflung an göttlicher Gerechtigkeit sich steigert, dass
historisch grosse Individuen moralisch nichtswürdig erscheinen können.
Die moralische Tüchtigkeit besteht in der Unterordnung alles dessen
was zufällig am Einzelnen unter das an ihm dem Allgemeinen
Angehörige.—MARBACH, _Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophie_, 7.
Das Sittliche der Neuseeländer, der Mexikaner ist vielmehr ebenso
sittlich, wie das der Griechen, der Römer; und das Sittliche der
Christen des Mittelalters ist ebenso sittlich, wie das der
Gegenwart.—KIRCHMANN, _Grundbegriffe des Rechts_, 194. Die
Geschichtswissenschaft als solche kennt nur ein zeitliches und mithin
auch nur ein relatives Maass der Dinge. Alle Werthbeurtheilung der
Geschichte kann daher nur relativ und aus zeitlichen Momenten
fliessen, und wer sich nicht selbst täuschen und den Dingen nicht
Gewalt anthun will, muss ein für allemal in dieser Wissenschaft auf
absolute Werthe verzichten.—LORENZ, _Schlosser_, 80. Only according
to his faith is each man judged. Committed as this deed has been by a
pure-minded, pious youth, it is a beautiful sign of the time.—DE
WETTE to Sand's Mother, CHEYNE, _Founders of Criticism_, 44. The men
of each age must be judged by the ideal of their own age and country,
and not by the ideal of ours.—LECKY, _Value of History_, 50.

[93] La durée ici-bas, c'est le droit, c'est la sanction de
Dieu.—GUIRAUD, _Philosophie Catholique de l'Histoire_.

[94] Ceux qui ne sont pas contens de l'ordre des choses ne
sçauroient se vanter d'aimer Dieu comme il faut.—Il faut toujours
estre content de l'ordre du passé, parce qu'il est conforme à la
volonté de Dieu absolue, qu'on connoit par l'évènement. Il faut tâcher
de rendre l'avenir, autant qu'il dépend de nous, conforme à la volonté
de Dieu présomptive.—LEIBNIZ, _Werke_, ed. Gerhardt, ii. 136. Ich
habe damals bekannt und bekenne jetzt, dass die politische Wahrheit
aus denselben Quellen zu schöpfen ist, wie alle anderen, aus dem
göttlichen Willen und dessen Kundgebung in der Geschichte des
Menschengeschlechts.—RADOWITZ, _Neue Gespräche_, 65.

[95] A man is great as he contends best with the
circumstances of his age.—FROUDE, _Short Studies_ i. 388. La
persuasion que l'homme est avant tout une personne morale et libre, et
qu'ayant conçu seul, dans sa conscience et devant Dieu, la règle de sa
conduite, il doit s'employer tout entier à l'appliquer en lui, hors de
lui, absolument, obstinément, inflexiblement, par une résistance
perpétuelle opposée aux autres; et par une contrainte perpétuelle
exercée sur soi, voilà la grande idée anglaise.—TAINE; SOREL,
_Discours de Réception_, 24. In jeder Zeit des Christenthums hat es
einzelne Männer gegeben, die über ihrer Zeit standen und von ihren
Gegensätzen nicht berührt wurden.—BACHMANN, _Hengstenberg_, i. 160.
Eorum enim qui de iisdem rebus mecum aliquid ediderunt, aut solus
insanio ego, aut solus non insanio; tertium enim non est, nisi (quod
dicet forte aliquis) insaniamus omnes.—HOBBES, quoted by DE MORGAN,
June 3, 1858, _Life of Sir W. R. Hamilton_, iii. 552.

[96] I have now to exhibit a rare combination of good
qualities, and a steady perseverance in good conduct, which raised an
individual to be an object of admiration and love to all his
contemporaries, and have made him to be regarded by succeeding
generations as a model of public and private virtue.—The evidence
shows that upon this occasion he was not only under the influence of
the most vulgar credulity, but that he violated the plainest rules of
justice, and that he really was the murderer of two innocent
women.—Hale's motives were most laudable.—CAMPBELL'S _Lives of the
Chief Justices_, i. 512, 561, 566. It was not to be expected of the
colonists of New England that they should be the first to see through
a delusion which befooled the whole civilized world, and the gravest
and most knowing persons in it.—The people of New England believed
what the wisest men of the world believed at the end of the
seventeenth century.—PALFREY, _New England_, iv. 127, 129 (also
speaking of witchcraft). Il est donc bien étrange que sa sévérité
tardive s'exerce aujourd'hui sur un homme auquel elle n'a d'autre
reproche à faire que d'avoir trop bien servi l'état par des mesures
politiques, injustes peut-être, violentes, mais qui, en aucune
manière, n'avaient l'intérêt personnel du coupable pour objet.—M.
Hastings peut sans doute paraître répréhensible aux yeux des
étrangers, des particuliers même, mais il est assez extraordinaire
qu'une nation usurpatrice d'une partie de l'Indostan veuille mêler les
règles de la morale à celles d'une administration forcée, injuste et
violente par essence, et à laquelle il faudrait renoncer à jamais pour
être conséquent.—MALLET DU PAN, _Memories_, ed. Sayous, i. 102.

[97] On parle volontiers de la stabilité de la constitution
anglaise. La vérité est que cette constitution est toujours en
mouvement et en oscillation et qu'elle se prête merveilleusement au
jeu de ses différentes parties. Sa solidité vient de sa souplesse;
elle plie et ne rompt pas.—BOUTMY, _Nouvelle Revue_, 1878, 49.

[98] This is not an age for a man to follow the strict
morality of better times, yet sure mankind is not yet so debased but
that there will ever be found some few men who will scorn to join
concert with the public voice when it is not well grounded.—_Savile
Correspondence_, 173.

[99] Cette proposition: L'homme est incomparablement plus
porté au mal qu'au bien, et il se fait dans le monde incomparablement
plus de mauvaises actions que de bonnes—est aussi certaine qu'aucun
principe de métaphysique. Il est donc incomparablement plus probable
qu'une action faite par un homme, est mauvaise, qu'il n'est probable
qu'elle soit bonne. Il est incomparablement plus probable que ces
secrets ressorts qui l'ont produite sont corrompus, qu'il n'est
probable qu'ils soient honnêtes. Je vous avertis que je parle d'une
action qui n'est point mauvaise extérieurement.—BAYLE, _Œuvres_,
ii. 248.

[100] A Christian is bound by his very creed to suspect evil,
and cannot release himself.—His religion has brought evil to light in
a way in which it never was before; it has shown its depth, subtlety,
ubiquity; and a revelation, full of mercy on the one hand, is terrible
in its exposure of the world's real state on the other. The Gospel
fastens the sense of evil upon the mind; a Christian is enlightened,
hardened, sharpened, as to evil; he sees it where others do
not.—MOZLEY, _Essays_, i. 308. All satirists, of course, work in the
direction of Christian doctrine, by the support they give to the
doctrine of original sin, making a sort of meanness and badness a law
of society.—MOZLEY, _Letters_, 333. Les critiques, même malveillants,
sont plus près de la vérité dernière que les admirateurs.—NISARD,
_Lit. fr._, Conclusion. Les hommes supérieurs doivent nécessairement
passer pour méchants. Où les autres ne voient ni un défaut, ni un
ridicule, ni un vice, leur implacable œil l'aperçoit.—BARBEY
D'AUREVILLY, _Figaro_, March 31, 1888.

[101] Prenons garde de ne pas trop expliquer, pour ne pas
fournir des arguments à ceux qui veulent tout excuser.—BROGLIE,
_Réception de Sorel_, 46.

[102] The eternal truths and rights of things exist,
fortunately, independent of our thoughts or wishes, fixed as
mathematics, inherent in the nature of man and the world. They are no
more to be trifled with than gravitation.—FROUDE, _Inaugural Lecture
at St. Andrews_, 1869, 41. What have men to do with interests? There
is a right way and a wrong way. That is all we need think
about.—CARLYLE to FROUDE, _Longman's Magazine_, Dec. 1892, 151. As to
History, it is full of indirect but very effective moral teaching. It
is not only, as Bolingbroke called it, “Philosophy teaching by
examples,” but it is morality teaching by examples.—It is essentially
the study which best helps the student to conceive large thoughts.—It
is impossible to overvalue the moral teaching of History.—FITCH,
_Lectures on Teaching_, 432. Judging from the past history of our
race, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, war is a folly and a
crime.—Where it is so, it is the saddest and the wildest of all
follies, and the most heinous of all crimes.—GREG, _Essays on
Political and Social Science_, 1853, i. 562. La volonté de tout un
peuple ne peut rendre juste ce qui est injuste: les représentants
d'une nation n'ont pas le droit de faire ce que la nation n'a pas le
droit de faire elle-même.—B. CONSTANT, _Principes de Politique_, i.
15.

[103] Think not that morality is ambulatory; that vices in
one age are not vices in another, or that virtues, which are under the
everlasting seal of right reason, may be stamped by opinion.—SIR
THOMAS BROWNE, _Works_, iv. 64.

[104] Osons croire qu'il seroit plus à propos de mettre de
côté ces traditions, ces usages, et ces coutumes souvent si
imparfaites, si contradictoires, si incohérentes, ou de ne les
consulter que pour saisir les inconvéniens et les éviter; et qu'il
faudroit chercher non-seulement les éléments d'une nouvelle
législation, mais même ses derniers détails dans une étude approfondie
de la morale.—LETROSNE, _Réflexions sur la Législation Criminelle_,
137. M. Renan appartient à cette famille d'esprits qui ne croient pas
en réalité la raison, la conscience, le droit applicables à la
direction des sociétés humaines, et qui demandent à l'histoire, à la
tradition, non à la morale, les règles de la politique. Ces esprits
sont atteints de la maladie du siècle, le scepticisme moral.—PILLON,
_Critique Philosophique_, i. 49.

[105] The subject of modern history is of all others, to my
mind, the most interesting, inasmuch as it includes all questions of
the deepest interest relating not to human things only, but to
divine.—ARNOLD, _Modern History_, 311.





End of Project Gutenberg's A Lecture on the Study of History, by Lord Acton